BOS LONGIFRONS 513 



and Bos primigenius ; in the more recent alluvium we find 

 it with the Bed Deer and with Eoman antiquities.* 



In many localities in Ireland the remains of the Bos 

 longifrons are found in the peat itself, from which it may 

 be inferred that the species continued to exist after the 

 Megaceros became extinct. 



Amongst the numerous specimens of the Bos longifrons 

 which have passed through my hands, I have recognised 

 two sizes of the horn-cores, the largest yielding a basal 

 circumference of seven inches, and a length along the 

 outer curve of seven inches ; and the smaller size being 

 that which is given in the preceding table of dimensions : 

 the smaller horns may have characterised the female, and 

 the larger horns, which have the same curvature and 

 rugged surface, the males. Mature Bovine metacarpal 

 and metatarsal bones, shorter than those of an ordinary 

 domestic Ox, or not exceeding them in size, but thicker 

 in proportion to their length, have been found fossil in 

 the caves at Kirkdale and Oreston. I suspect these to 

 belong to the Bos longifrons ; at all events they testify the 

 co-existence of an ordinary-sized Bos with the extinct 

 Carnivora of that remote period, and one, therefore, more 

 likely to become their prey, than the comparatively gigan- 

 tic Bison and Urus. 



It has been remarked, in a former section, that the 

 domesticated descendants of a primitive wild race of cattle 

 were more likely to be met with in the mountains than 

 in the lowlands of Britain, because the aborigines, retain- 

 ing their ground longest in the mountain fastnesses, may 

 be supposed to have driven thither such domestic cattle as 

 they possessed before the foreign invasion, and which we 



* The specimens of Bos longifrons from Diglis are those referred to at p. 475 

 as bones " of small short-horned Cattle." 



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