lo EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



even though they are caught young. Their 

 horns differ much in size, shape, and kind from 

 those of our cattle. They are anxiously sought 

 after, the lips mounted with silver, and used 

 as cups at the most abundant banquets." 



The final step was from Caesar's Urus to a 

 British relative whose occasional remains have been 

 found in primeval Scots bogs and East Anglian 

 fens and in alluvial and lacustrine deposits whose 

 hospitality they have shared with the elephant, 

 the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and other 

 aforetime inhabitants of England and Scotland 

 since Neolithic times. This ox was of gigantic 

 proportions. McKenny Hughes ^ describes it as 

 "a large, gaunt beast with a long, narrow face." 

 Fleming says,'* " Many of the skulls which occur 

 in marl-pits in Scotland exhibit dimensions 

 superior to those of the largest domestic breed. 

 A skull in my possession measures twenty-seven 

 inches and a half in length, and eleven inches 

 and a half across the orbits." Owen, in de- 

 scribing a skull in the British Museum found 

 near Atholl in Perthshire, says, ** The skull is 

 one yard in length and the span of the horn- 

 cores is three feet six inches."^ The accompany- 

 ing drawings, in McKenny Hughes's paper, from 

 an ox of this kind ** found in Burwell Fen, near 



1 " On the more important Breeds of Cattle which have been 

 recognised in the British Isles," 1896, p. 6. 



2 " History of British Animals," 1828, p. 24. 



3 "British Fossil Mammals," 1846, p. 501. 



