BOVID& 3 67 



The true Oxen, or Taurine group, are now represented solely 

 by Bos taurus and Bos indicus. Both of these species are now known 

 only by domesticated races, unless the herds of the former preserved 

 at Chillingham and some other British parks are the survivors 

 of an original wild race. The dorsal ridge of the Bibovine group 

 is here wanting; the horns are rounded, with their extremities 

 directed backwards, and are placed at the extreme vertex of the 

 skull ; while the long frontal region is nearly flat ; the' temporal 

 fossae scarcely intrude upon the occipital aspect of the skull ; and 

 the premaxillse reach the nasals. The hoofs are large and rounded. 

 It is known that wild Oxen were abundant in the forests of Europe 

 at the time of Julius Csesar, by whom they were described as the 

 Urus, equal to the German Aurochs ; and the large skulls found in 

 turbary and Pleistocene deposits, and described under the name of 

 Bos primigenius, can only be regarded as having belonged to the 

 large original race of B. taurus, of which it has been thought the 

 Chillingham cattle are smaller descendants. 1 The subfossil skulls 

 described as B. longifrons and B. frontosus must also be looked upon 

 as referable to smaller races of the same species. That the domestic 

 cattle of Europe are descendants from the various races of the same 

 original species there can be no doubt, but in the case of the humped 

 cattle of India (B. indicus) it is quite probable that their origin 

 may be, at least in part, different. The extinct Bos namadicus, of 

 the Pleistocene deposits of India, was a species with the general 

 characters of the Taurine group, but with an inclination to a 

 flattening of the horns, and with an approximation to a Bibovine 

 type of occiput, as well as with the separation of the premaxillse 

 from the nasals. 



The earliest representatives of this group occur in the Pliocene 

 of the Siwalik Hills in Northern India. One of these species 

 (B. planifrons) appears to be allied to B. namadicus ; but the other 

 (B. acutifrons) was a gigantic species characterised by the sharp 

 median angulation of the frontal region, and the pyriform section 

 of the enormous horn-cores. 



The extinct B. elatus, from the Upper Pliocene of France and 

 Italy, is the representative of a generalised type, which may be 

 known as the Leptobovine group. The males had rounded horn- 

 cores widely separated at their bases, and placed low down on the 

 forehead. The females (which have been described as Leptobos) were 

 often or always hornless. The limbs were unusually slender. 

 This group also occurs in the Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills. 



1 The late Mr. Alston, Fauna of Scotlatid, " Mammalia " (Glasgow, 1880), p. 25, 

 considers that the Chillingham cattle are descendants of a race which had escaped 

 from domestication. 



