266 Prof. Nilsson on the extinct and existing 



writer ascribes to the Bison wide horns, or to the Urus long 

 hair. 



" Tibi dant vavise pectora tigres, 

 Tibi villosi terga hisontes 

 Latisque feri cornibus uri." — Senec. Hippol. Act. 1. v. 63. 



"Germania . . . gignit . . ,juhatos Bisontes, excellentique vi 

 et velocitate Uri, quibus imperitum vulgus Buhalorum nomen 

 imponit.^^ — Plin. Hist. Nat. viii. cap. 5. 



Both these animals were carried to Rome to be viewed by the 

 people in the Circus. Martial and others, who were present and 

 saw them, describe them as of different species. 



" Illi cessit atrox bubalus atque bison." — Martial, Sped. 23. 



For my part, I am convinced, from all these combined reasons, 

 that our two largest species of fossil Ox were known to the Ro- 

 mans under the name of Urus and Bison. They are also spoken 

 of by German writers of the middle age. In the poem of the 

 * Nibelungen,' v. 3761, a chase is described which took place in a 

 mountainous and woody tract (v. 3775) in the neighbourhood 

 of Worms, where it is related that Siegfried killed one Visent 

 and four Uri : — 



" Darnach schhich er schiere einen Visent und einen Elch, 

 Starker Ure viere und einen grimmen Schelch*." 



In Griffith's admirable ^Animal Kingdom,' an English ela- 

 boration of Cuvier's ' Regne Animal,' to which I had not pre- 

 viously had access, is given in the 4th book, p. 416, an engraving 

 of the Bos Urus. The original painting, which was found in the 

 possession of a merchant at Augsburg, and copied for that work 

 by Hamilton Smith, is supposed to have been executed in the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century. This old painting, which is 

 upon a square piece, had in one corner the remains of a (noble) 

 coat of arms and the word Thur in gilt German characters almost 

 effaced. If the plate be a true copy of the original, it shows 

 plainly that it was made from a wild and not a tame animal. 

 Such an exterior and such horns no tame animal has ; but just 

 such horns and with just such a curvature and direction, to judge 

 from the length and direction of the horn-cores, our fossil, great, 

 flat-foreheaded Ox must have had. As a further proof of this my 

 conviction, it may be added, that T possess a war-hoim in bronze, 

 dug from a depth of 6-8 feet out of a turf-bog in southern 



* Many have been the conjectures as to what animal is meant by 5*07/^/0^. 

 Biisching has translated it by Brandhirsch ; others are of opinion that it 

 was the now fossil Irish Cervus euryceios ; but all this is only conjecture. In 

 the same poem it is said (v. 37.5G), that Siegfried's hound (Bracke) started 

 " ein ungefugen leuwen " which Siegfried sliot, with bow and arrow, and 

 which made but three springs after being shot. But it is probable that by 

 Leuwen is meant Lo, the Lynx. In v. 3755 is mentioned •' ein vil starchez 

 halpfwul," by which probably is meant a Glutton or Badger. 



