490 CAPRA. 



Goat, and also in the Sheep ; and the highly interesting 

 question, which of these had existed contemporaneously 

 with the Mammoth and Rhinoceros, was satisfactorily 

 determined by the cranial fragment. In its shape and size, 

 and especially in the character of the cores of the horns, 

 which were two inches in length, subcompressed, pointed, 

 and directed upwards, with a slight bend outwards and 

 backwards, it closely agreed with the common Goat (Capra 

 hircus), and with the short-horned female of the Wild 

 Goat (Capra ^Egagrus). In the Sheep, the greatest dia- 

 meter of the horn is across the longitudinal axis of the 

 head ; in the Goat, it runs almost parallel with it, a 

 character well shown in the present fossil. 



Whether the Capra ^gagrus or the Capra Ilex should 

 be regarded as the stock of the domesticated Goat of Eu- 

 rope has long been a question amongst Naturalists ; the 

 weighty argument which may be drawn from the cha- 

 racter of the wild species, which was contemporary with 

 the Bos primigenius and Bos longifrons in England, is shown 

 by the present fossil to be in favour of Capra ^gagrus. 



I have been favoured with some remains of the Goat, 

 from a bog in Fermanagh, by the Earl of Enniskillen ; 

 but as the evidence of their having been obtained from 

 the subjacent marl was not conclusive, they may have 

 belonged to a comparatively recent period. Remains of 

 the Goat, associated with those of the Ox, Red-deer, Hog, 

 Horse, and Dog, were found in the bed of the Avon, 

 in sinking the foundations of a bridge over that river, 

 near the town of Chippenham. Bones of a Goat or Sheep, 

 similarly associated, have been transmitted to me by Dr. 

 Richardson, from a gravel-pit in Lincolnshire. 



