WILD OXEN.] 



CATTLE, AND THEIE VAEIETIES. 



[wild oxen. 



combined to effect a series of modifications in 

 the ox. Every country possesses its peculiar 

 races ; and these races, by their intermixture, 

 are perpetually producing others ; so that it is 

 impossible to say to what extent these changes 

 may be carried, and bow far the original type 

 may have already become modified. Certain 

 it is, that we are acquainted witli no animal 

 in a state of original independence, to wliich 

 the primitive type of the ox can be referred. 

 It is true, however, that within the period of 

 authentic history, certain wild oxen existed in 

 Europe ; but it is not to Europe that we 

 must look as the cradle of the domestic ox ; 

 nor, indeed, are the accounts left us of tliese 

 oxen reconcilable with any of them having been 

 specifically identical with our domestic race, 

 which, when we look at the Zebu breed, seems 

 to claim more than one source. One of these 

 wild animals was termed by the ancients TJrus 

 (laiis cornihus), and another. Bison (jubatus, or 

 villosusj. We Lave also an animal described 

 under the name of Bonasus — the BuvacaoQ, 

 or BovaaoQ, of Aristotle. 



The Urus, which existed in the Hercynian 

 forest, is thus described by Csesar: — "These 

 uri are little inferior to elephants in size, but 

 are bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. 

 Great is their strength, and great their swift- 

 ness ; nor do they spare man or beast when 

 they have caught sight of either. These, when 

 trapped in pitfalls, the hunters unsparingly 

 kill. The youths, exercising themselves by 

 this sort of bunting, are hardened by the toil ; 

 and those among them who have killed most, 

 bringing with them the horns as testimonials, 

 acquire great praise. But these uri cannot be 

 habituated to man, or made tractable, not even 

 when young. The great size of the horns, as 

 well as the form and quality of them, differs 

 much from the horns of our oxen. These, 

 when carefully selected, the people ring round 

 the edge with silver, and use to drink with at 

 their ample feasts." Perhaps the wild bulls, 

 witli horns of extraordinary size, which He- 

 rodotus assures us inhabited Macedonia, 

 were uri. 



The Bison (jubatus of Pliny). — This species, 

 regarded by Cuvier and most naturalists as 

 identical with the Bonasus of Aristotle, is con- 

 sidered, and perhaps with reason, as referable 

 to the Aurochs or Zubr (JBos urus of modern 

 612 



naturalists, not Urus of Cajsar), still existing 

 in the wild forests of Lithuania. In Europe 

 and Siberia, the fossil crania of aurochs are 

 not uncommon ; and these skulls, though they 

 scarcely differ in anything from the Lithuanian 

 animal, Cuvier inclines to think may be of a 

 different, though closely-allied species. He 

 gives the figures of a skull in the Paris museum, 

 so like, as he observes, to the living aurochs, 

 that the most practised eye can scarcely dis- 

 tinguish it; and also so fresh, that he is in 

 doubt whether it be really a fossil relic, or, on 

 the contrary, recent, owing its fossil appear- 

 ance to having been much weathered. Mr. 

 Lyell states, that the bones of the aurocli or 

 bison have been found in the ISTorth Cliff, in 

 the county of York, in a lacustrine formation, 

 in which all the laud and fresh-water shells, 

 thirteen in number, can be identified with 

 species and varieties now existing in that 

 county. The Urus of Csesar and the ancients 

 was characterised by the immensity of its 

 horns, and its vast stature; in the former of 

 which it differs materially from the ancient 

 full-maned bison, or Lithuanian auroch. This 

 urus no longer, as it would appear, exists ; but 

 fossil skulls, of a species far exceeding the 

 largest domestic ox in magnitude, with the 

 core of massive horns, are abundant in the 

 superficial strata of Europe. This species is 

 termed, by Cuvier, Bos primigenius ; and he 

 carefully distinguishes the skull from that of 

 the fossil auroch. In a specimen found at 

 Melksham, and described by Mr. "Woods, the 

 cores of the horns measured, at their widest 

 expansion, upwards of four feet. AYe may 

 easily conceive what must have been the ex- 

 pansion of the horns themselves: the skull, 

 destitute of the lower jaw, and not perfect 

 otherwise, weighed sixty-three pounds. Larger 

 specimens, however, have been discovered. 



This extinct species Cuvier regards as the 

 type of the domestic ox ; in which opinion Mr. 

 Bell and most naturalists coincide, at the same 

 time that they consider the " celebrated white, 

 wild oxen of Craven, of Chillingham Park, and 

 Scotland, as specifically the same with the 

 common ox. Contrary to this, however, Colonel 

 Hamilton Smith and Mr. Swaiuson regard the 

 white ox of Chillingham Park (Bos Scoticus 

 of some authors) as distinct from the common 

 ox. The former regards the Chillingham ox 



