166 QUATERNARY PERIOD. 



considerably from all existing species, but seems, in its size, in 

 the two horns with which the head was armed, and in the form 

 of the teeth, to be most nearly related to the two-horned rhino- 

 ceros of the Cape of Good Hope (R. bicornis, Linn.) . 



Of the urus (Bos primigenius, Boj.), Prof. Heer has in his 

 collection fragments of jaws with teeth from Durnten. At 

 Utznach, however, a complete skull with two great horns was 

 discovered some years' ago; but, unfortunately, it has been 

 lost. According to Prof. Riitimeyer, this is the original stock 

 of our domestic cattle, and its type has been best preserved in 

 the Friesland race. It is from one fifth to one fourth larger 

 than a very large cow. The horns first curve strongly back- 

 wards and outwards, then suddenly bend forwards and upwards, 

 so that the points stand very high and perpendicularly above the 

 forehead, and are bent slightly backwards at the extremity. 



The elephant and rhinoceros became extinct during the Quater- 

 nary period ; but the urus still appears as a wild animal at the 

 time of the pile-dwellings (as at Robenhausen and Moosseedorf), 

 and, as the progenitor of the domestic ox, it has become one of 

 the most important species of animals. It was associated with 

 the red deer (Cervus elaphus, Linn.), teeth of which found 

 at Durnten and Utznach are undistinguishable from those of 

 the living animal. The bear, of which teeth and portions of 

 the jaw have been met with in the lignite of Utznach, was, on 

 the contrary, considerably larger than the existing bear of the 

 Alps, and constitutes a distinct species, which occurred abund- 

 antly in the Quaternary period, especially in caves. From this 

 last circumstance it has received the name of the " cave-bear " 

 (Ursus spelaus, Blum.). Its forehead was more convex than 

 that of the Swiss bear ; and its teeth were much larger ; there 

 is a gap between the canine and the first true molars. 



The existence of a squirrel in forests is indicated by the fir- 

 cones, of which the scales are bitten away in exactly the same 

 way as in cones from which squirrels have extracted the seeds * 

 (see fig. 332, p. 156). 



* Prof. Heer has seen, in the British Museum, cones treated in the same 

 way from the forest-bed of the Norfolk coast (see Lyell, ( Antiquity of Man,' 

 p. 215). 



