PBODUCED BY MAN. 813 



the Palaeartic Region, and this is all that is necessary for my 

 present argument. 



As regards the ox, the sheep, the horse, and the goat, I cannot 

 think that with our present knowledge of zoogeography there can be 

 any question that their parent-stocks were Palaearctic animals; and 

 I am further prepared to express my belief that further investiga- 

 tion will render it highly probable that it was in that particular 

 though very extensive part of the Palaearctic Region spoken of 

 vaguely as ' Asiens Buckel,' or ' Hochasien/ and comprehending 

 portions of all the great mountain ranges from the Caucasus proper 

 to the northern side of the Hindoo Koosh, and from the Taurus to 

 the Altai mountains, that these several parent-stocks were brought 

 under the influence of domestication. Wild animals are still to be 

 found in some one or other or in several spots within that area 

 from which we have no a priori reason for doubting that man 

 might in the course of ages have educed the three last-named of 

 the four domestic animals, the ox, the sheep, the horse, and the 

 goat ; and that a wild ox existed in the regions in which the Old 

 Testament writers lived, not only their writings, but the Assyrian 

 sculptures, and not only the Assyrian sculptures, but geological 

 remains testify. The case, however, for the ox having been first 

 domesticated in Central Asia, is the weakest of the four, and it may 

 be well to take it first. The Rev. William Houghton has in his 

 memoir on the domestic mammalia of the Assyrian sculptures 

 ('Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archaeology/ v. i. st. i. p. 1^ 1876, and ibid. 

 1877, p. 54) given us a very spirited drawing from one of the 

 Assyrian sculptures representing the hunting and the killing of 

 the wild ox. What is of special value in this sculpture is for our 

 purpose the presence between the shoulder-blades of a hump, which 

 is present in so many other of the larger Ruminantia, but which, 

 as Mr. Houghton remarks, reminds us of the Indian zebu, and 

 of the fact that there are no specific differences between these two 

 oxen underlying their soft parts. There can be no doubt that the 

 figure is intended to represent a wild animal. The Accadians, 

 who were in the habit of giving names to animals which referred 

 to the countries whence they obtained them, gave names to the ox, 

 which Professor Sayce thinks must refer to the country between the 

 Euphrates and Syria and to Phoenicia. The bulls of Bashan, and 

 possibly of the Taurus range, may be rightly recalled to our 



