366 Rev. W. Haughton on the Unicorn of the Ancients. 



future investigations in Palestine may result in the discovery of 

 the bones of Bos piimigenius or Bison priscus or some other once 

 formidable ox. All readers will remember the beautiful description 

 of the Rem in the Book of Job ; now let us compare with it the 

 account Csesar gives of the fierce t/rws, which in his time frequented 

 the great Hercynian Forest : — " These Uri are scarcely less than 

 elephants in size, but in their nature, colour, and form are bulls. 

 Great is their strength, and great their speed, nor do they spare 

 man or beast when once they have caught sight of him. The 

 hunters are most careful to kill those vi^hich they take in pit- 

 falls, while the young men exercise themselves by this sort of 

 hunting, and grow hardened by the toil ; those of them who kill 

 most, receive great praise when they exhibit in public the horns as 

 trophies of their success. These Uri, however, even when they are 

 young, cannot be habituated to man and made tractable. The 

 size and shape of their horns are very different from those of our 

 oxen.^'* 



The indomitable nature ascribed to these wild Uri exactly agrees 

 with the description of the Kem as given in chap, xxxix. of the 

 Book of Job ; and the apparently implied contrast which is made 

 between the domestic ox and the wild Urus finds an analogue in 

 the above extract from Csesar. The same remark may be made 

 with respect to the great size and strength of the Scriptural 

 R'em when contrasted with the domestic oxen of Palestine, the 

 ancient inhabitants of which land would naturally draw the 

 same comparison between their domestic cattle and the mighty 

 Wem as Csesar^s legions did between their cattle [Bos longifrons) 

 and the great Hercynian wild bulls {Bos primigenius) ^ whose 

 bones are now occasionally found, together with those of the 

 elephant, hyaena, &c., in the Tertiary deposits of this country. 



It is time, how^ever, to turn our attention to the Unicorns 

 which are mentioned in the writings of the ancient Greeks and 

 Romans. 



The earliest record of the existence of a one-horned quadruped 

 is to be found in Ctesias's Treatise on India (Tv^^/ca), of which 

 we possess an abridgement in Photius and a much more complete 

 edition by Bahr. Ctesias lived in the time of Xenophon (circ. 

 B.C. 400), and resided for many years in Persia as physician at 

 the court of King Artaxerxes Mnemon. It was while he w^as 

 there that he collected materials for the above-named treatise, 

 which consists mainly of a description of the natural history of 

 the north-west part of India : it must be borne in mind that his 

 account of the natural history of that country was derived second- 

 hand, for Ctesias was never himself in India. He must there- 

 fore be understood simply to give the Persians' own accounts 

 * Bell. Gall. vi. cap. 29. 



