BOS LONGIFRONS. 511 



of the Bos longifrons describe a single short curve outwards 

 and forwards in the plane of the forehead, rarely rising 

 above that plane, more rarely sinking below it : the cores 

 have a very rugged exterior, and are usually a little flat- 

 tened at their upper part. 



Remains of this species were described by Robert Ball, 

 Esq., Secretary to the Zoological Society of Dublin, in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy for Ja- 

 nuary 1839, 1 as indicating " a variety or race differing 

 very remarkably from any previously described in works 

 with which the author was Acquainted." They consisted 

 principally of parts of the skull with the horn-cores, which 

 had been found at considerable depths in bogs in West- 

 meath, Tyrone, and Longford. 



In the same year Mr. Woods, in his ' Description of the 

 Skull of the Bos primigenius from Melksham, 1 gave a 

 notice of a fragment of a skull, including the cores of the 

 horns, with a wood-cut of the specimen, clearly showing 

 it to belong to the Bos longifrons. It was found in a peat- 

 bog in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater. This formation 

 " covers an ancient sea-beach (although now nine miles 

 from the coast), in which such marine genera as Mureaa, 

 Ostrea, Mytilus, and Solen are abundantly embedded, and 

 over these as plentiful a deposit of freshwater species, as 

 Helix, Planorlis, Lymnea, &c., exhibiting the alternate 

 resting of the sea, and a river or lake for very considerable 

 periods." The peat above these deposits is thirty feet in 

 thickness, and the skull of the Bos longifrons was deeply 

 embedded in it. 



The agreement of the specimens from the more ancient 

 freshwater beds in Essex and Middlesex with those from 

 the later formations of Devonshire and Ireland is ex- 

 * Op, cit p. 28. 



