2. TTNGFLATA. 



Genus BOS, Linn. 1 



33og taunts, Linn. 2 



It has been shown by Boyd-Dawkins 3 that the so-called Bos pri- 

 migeniiis is in all probability the ancestor of the larger existing cattle 

 of Western Europe ; " the wild cattle of Chillingham Park, Northum- 

 berland, being probably the last surviving representative of the 

 gigantic Urus of the Pleistocene period, reduced in size, and modi- 

 fied in every respect by their small range and their contact with 

 man." The same authority 4 likewise comes to the conclusion that 

 Bos lonyifrons, Owen, is an ancestral form of the small existing 

 Scotch and Welsh cattle. 



Hab. " Europe, and, as a domestic animal, the greater part of the 

 habitable world " (Flower}. 



Var. primigenius (Bojanus 5 ). 



Syn. Bos primigenius, Bojanus 8 . 

 Bos urus, Boyd-Dawkins 7 . 

 Bos giganteus, Owen 8 , MS. 



The writer has found it totally impossible to distinguish the de- 

 tached jaws, teeth, and skeletal bones of this form from those of 

 the contemporaneous Bison ; the very large series in the Museum 

 showing such an amount of variation in absolute size and relative 

 proportion as apparently to forbid any such division. Under these cir- 

 cumstances nearly all the specimens are provisionally referred to 

 the present form, as being the commoner of the two. 



M. 2245. The cranium ; from the Pleistocene of Athol, Perthshire. 

 (Fig.) This fine specimen is described and figured by Owen in tho 



' British Fossil Mammals and Birds,' pp. 501-2, figs. 



208, 210 ; the figure of the frontal aspect being repro- 



1 Syst. Nat. ed. 12, vol. i. p. 98 (1766). 



* Loc. cit. 



9 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxii. pp. 391-401 (1866). 



4 Ibid. vol. xxiii. pp. 176-185 (1867). 



5 Nova Acta Ac. Gees. Leop.-Oar. vol. xiii. pt. 2, p. 422 (1827). 8 Loc. cit, 

 7 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. ixii. p. 392 (1866). 



B In Davies's ' Catalogue of the Pleistocene Vertebrata in the Collection of Sir 

 Antonio Brady,' p. 47 (1874). (Privately printed.) 



