325 



who informs us lie had seen a similar skull in Warwick Castle. The spe- 

 cimen of this fossil which I possess was dug up in Dumfrieshire. The 

 following are its measurements. 



Feet. Inches. 



The length of the bony core of each horn 2 6 



Circumference at its base ..1 5 



Width of the forehead at the root of the horns 1 Of 



Distance of the tips of the horns from each other 2 11 



M. Pallas describes a fossil skull found in Siberia, which he concluded 

 to have belonged to the common buffalo of India and of Italy ; to which 

 opinion he was led by the angle or ridge, which runs the length of the 

 horn. Nov. Com. Petrop. xm. p. 460. 



The examination of this fossil induced M. Cuvier to conclude, that this 

 could not be a skull of the common buffalo ; since, in this animal, the 

 width of the head is less in proportion to the length than in the fossil, 

 particularly between the orbits; the distance of which, in the fossil, is a 

 striking character. The curvature of the horns is also different. In the 

 common buffalo they turn backwards, at the side, and upwards, without 

 coming forward ; but, in the fossil, they go obliquely upwards by the 

 side, and their point comes forward. The longitudinal projecting angle 

 also appears to be less strongly marked. 



M. Pallas, indeed, afterwards concluded, that these horns were not of 

 the common buffalo, but of a supposed large species described by Dr. 

 Anderson in the Bee, Dec. 1792, and to which the name of Amis has 

 been given. But M. Cuvier offers very good reasons for supposing that 

 mistakes have been made with respect to the size of this animal, which he 

 conceives to be nothing more than a race of buffaloes, with uncommonly 

 large horns, but by no means of a particular species. From every con- 

 sideration, he is therefore led to suppose that the fossil buffalos' heads of 

 Siberia belong to a particular species, entirely different from the com- 

 mon buffalo and the arne, as well as from the ox and the aurochs. 



These skulls have been found on the banks of the rivers in the furthest 



