324 



an enormous size ; and it cannot be unfair to infer, that the other bones 

 of the animal were in the same proportion: and that such a prodigious 

 size of the bones of the whole animal can be attributable merely to plenty 

 of nourishment, I cannot suppose to be admissible. 



The bone of a horn, most probably of this species, found by Mr. Peale, 

 in Kentucky, was of still larger dimensions than those in the Museum of 

 Natural History, since the circumference of its base was more than 

 eighteen inches. Another fossil core of a horn, probably of this species, 

 is described by M. Mayer, which must have even exceeded this in mag- 

 nitude. 



The second species of these horns surpass in size those of our domes- 

 ticated oxen, and differ from them also in having a different direction, 

 The skulls to which these horns are attached are very different from those 

 of the aurochs ; and, as has been already remarked, are supposed by 

 M. Cuvier to have belonged to a very different race ; to that wild race, 

 which was the original stock of our present domesticated oxen. The 

 osteological characters of the skull, he supposes, prove their affinity; and 

 the difference in the direction of the horns, he conceives by no means a 

 character sufficient to mark a species. 



Horns of this latter description have been frequently found. Several 

 have been found in France ; and M. Faujas has seen them in the cabi- 

 nets of Manheim and of Darmstadt, and in that of M. Saltzwedel, at 

 Francfort. They have also been dug up in the neighbourhood of Stutt- 

 gardt ; and M. Soldani describes a skull of this species, found near to 

 Arezzo, the forehead of which was a foot wide, and the horns two feet 

 seven inches long, and fourteen inches in circumference at their base. 

 He also mentions another found near Rome, at the depth of twenty feet. 

 The width between the orbits was fourteen inches; and the circumference 

 of their core, at its base, was eighteen inches. Essai Qryctogrtiphique, 

 PL xxiv. and xxv. Gesner, more than two hundred years ago, engraved 

 a skull of this sort> the design of which was sent him by his friend Caiu% 



