BOS. 



559 



include in the same section with the domestic ox, but 

 without asserting that such an arrangement is right, 

 or admitting that it is wrong , for as we have 

 endeavoured to show, tRere is not much science in 

 the subdivision of the genus. 



THK COMMON Ox, WILD BULL, or Uaus (Bos taunts, 

 Bos urus, of authors). Whether the native stock of 

 the domestic varieties still exists, or whether (as is 

 more likely) these have accompanied civilisation 

 from the East, is a point which cannot be ascertained 

 with any degree of satisfaction, as thev contain 

 enough of resemblance, and also of difference, to 

 make the conclusion plausible either way. This 

 species belongs to the living world, only as a very 

 doubtful, and certainly a contaminated remnant, as in 

 the countries where it is said to be found, the domestic 

 breeds were introduced before they were fenced in 

 by enclosures, or any attention paid to the difference 

 of breeds and their characters. We trust however 

 to be able, in the course of our observations, to show 

 that the only variety of Urns of which there are 

 specimens existing in an apparently wild state, is in 

 truth nothing more than a small portion of a living 

 and well-known domestic variety, which has been 

 allowed to run wild under peculiar circumstances. 

 Cuvier, with his usual sagacity, says nothing about 

 this original race, in the lieg/u- Animal ; but as we 

 have the popular writers against us, totum armcnlum, 

 we must proceed cautiously, and guard our steps. 



The characters usually given of this species are ; 

 the forehead, or front, square and flat, or even a little 

 hollowed in the centre, instead of being arched, as in 

 the bisons ; the occiput also flattened, and the union 

 of these t\vo parts forming a ridge at the top of the 

 front ; the horns, originating from the lateral angles 

 of this ridge, are round in their section, and they 

 curve outwards, upwards, and forwards ; the ridge at 

 the upper part of the front (in the male), thickly set 

 with curly hair, but without any very distinct mane 

 along the ridge of the neck, or beard on the chin and 

 throat ; no bump over the interscapular part of the 

 spine, but a dewlap pendent between the fore legs, 

 which becomes enlarged and of firmer texture in the 

 autumn, when the animals arc left exposed to the 

 weather ; only thirteen pairs of ribs ; the tail rather 

 long, furnished with a brush at the point, and the 

 basal part for some length seated in a groove ; female 

 with four inguinal teats, arranged in a square upon 

 the udder, which is more enlarged than in most of 

 the other species. The period of gestation (in the 

 domestic species) is nine months ; and the female 

 arrives at fertility in a year and a half, and the male 

 in two years. These are also the characters of the 

 domesticated race, in so far as animals which are 

 so much broken into varieties can have general 

 characters. 



Of the wild ones there are, or rather there are said to 

 have been, two varieties, if not three. One of larger 

 dimensions is found only in a fossil state, though if we 

 can credit the accounts of the ancients, it appears to 

 have been in existence about the time when the people 

 of the then civilised world began to invade the forests 

 of central Europe. It appears from the localities in 

 which its remains are found, to have been the imme- 

 diate neighbour of the bison, and it is possible that 

 the one may have been confounded with the other. 



There are black uri with white chins, and without 

 the shaggy appendages of the bisons, mentioned at a 

 later period of European history ; and these are said 



to have been smaller than the fossil tiri, and with 

 the horns differently formed. But no very great 

 stress can be laid upon such accounts. The antiqui- 

 ties of natural history are the most vague of all 

 antiquities, though the whole is sufficiently tinged 

 with that character. Somewhere not very tar from 

 the place where the remaining bisons are still said to 

 be found, is the locality assigned for these black wild 

 cattle. But we ought to bear in mind, how man had 

 chased man, and civilisation dawned and set in these 

 places, or their near vicinity, between the time when 

 the Romans first established themselves on the 

 Danube, and that at which these wild cattle are 

 said to have been seen. Further, we should bear in 

 mind, that many (indeed most) of the adventurers by 

 whom these creatures were invaded, were from the 

 East, where they had lived wandering or nomadic 

 lives, and subsisted in great part upon these cattle. 

 From these circumstances, it is at least as likely that 

 these had been the descendants of herds now domes- 

 ticated, as that they were a native race in these 

 localities. Even now, if by any combination of 

 circumstances, the histories of the colonisations of 

 South America and Australia could be as completely 

 lost, as many centuries of that of much of Europe is, 

 future naturalists would be very apt to describe cat- 

 tle as natives of these countries, and especially of 

 South America, where the unlimited ones have 

 become so numerous, as to reach, or even exceed in 

 abundance, the native bisons of the north of the 

 same continent. 



The species of which there are the most recent 

 alleged accounts as being in the wild state, is the 

 white Urus, or wild bull (Urus Scoticus}; and even 

 its history is abundantly vague. Report says that, 

 at one period of British history, and that not a very 

 remote one, these animals ranged at large in the 

 natural forests of the north of England and the south 

 of Scotland, though less is said of their appearance 

 in the opposite end, or even in the centre of either 

 country, where both climate and pasturage were at 

 least as favourable for them. That there have been 

 a few of them at scattered points since people began 

 to observe, or at any rate to record their observations 

 on natural history, cannot be doubted. But these 

 remains of a supposed ancient race are found only in 

 the parks of a few of the great proprietors, which are 

 generally artificially formed and planted ; and none 

 are said to have been observed even in the wildest 

 woods, which, in a state of nature, even where these 

 consist of deciduous copse-wood, and abound in 

 grass of the most kindly description, forming the 

 least "inviting" for the proprietary cattle, which are 

 most nearly in a stale of nature. Now that any part 

 of the genus bos, which in all its species, and in all 

 other parts of the world, keeps aloof from the haunts 

 of man, and fades before the progress of civilisation, 

 if not domesticated and thus made part of the system, 

 should be so wholly changed in one small locality, 

 or rather in a few detached spots of that locality, us 

 to have got into inclosed plantations, and to remain 

 and breed there, and there only, while it has, from 

 time immemorial, vanished from places more in 

 accordance with the usual habits of the genus, is such 

 an anomaly that it cannot be received upon the 

 testimony of any tradition. 



We do not, however, question the fact of its having 

 been lately, or being still at the places in question ; b'.it 

 the doubtful point, and one to establish the affirma- 



