LOW ON VARIATIONS IN SPECIES. 9 



in the two cases have before us material of almost com- 

 plete sameness animals so entirely identical in structure, 

 although slightly modified in form by different usage, that 

 in spite of all the arbitrary and fanciful distinctions that 

 naturalists have endeavoured to set up, we would still feel 

 constrained to regard them as having had a common origin 

 in one well-defined if somewhat varying species of the 

 genus Bos, those wild humpless cattle that browsed on 

 the luxuriant plains in this country during the Newer- 

 Pliocene period. 



In leaving this 'subject, we may present an apt quota- 

 tion from a footnote in Professor Low's admirable work 

 on the 'Domestic Animals of Great Britain.' In refer- 

 ring to the huge oxen whose skeletons were found in 

 various parts of Europe, Professor Low says these skele- 

 tons indicate an animal nearly three times the bulk of 

 the oxen of the present day, and adds that the skeletons 

 have been found "in the same situations as the great 

 extinct Irish Elk, and thus seem to have survived various 

 species with which they were associated, and even per- 

 haps to have survived till within the historic era." Con- 

 tinuing, he says : " A question, however, which has been 

 agitated by naturalists is, Whether these huge animals 

 are the origin of the domestic races, and may not even 

 have been the uri described by Caesar ? The question is 

 one which bears less than is assumed upon the origin of 

 the existing races. We can, by all the evidence which 

 the question admits of, trace existing races to the ancient 

 uri which, long posterior to the historical era, inhabited 

 the forests of Germany. Gaul, Britain, and other countries. 

 It is a question involving an entirely different series of 

 considerations, whether these uri were themselves de- 

 scended from an anterior race, surpassing them in magni- 

 tude, and inhabiting the globe at the same time with 

 other extinct species. While there is nothing that can 

 directly support this hypothesis, there is nothing certainly 



