Bovine Animals of Scandinavia. 



257 



of grass : they often devour green leaves and young tender 

 branches, and these generally, besides the leaves of the pine and 

 mosses, are their principal food during the winter in cold di- 

 stricts. (1 am not here speaking of cattle that are housed.) They 

 live like all ruminating animals (perhaps with the exception of 

 the roe kind), and like their representatives among birds, viz. 

 gallinaceous domestic fowls, in a state of polygamy; and like 

 these, congregate, particularly at pairing-time, in flocks, when the 

 forests resound and the fields echo with their loud cries. During 

 this time, obstinate conflicts take place between the males, and 

 the strongest are those which perpetuate the breed. Their cry 

 is usually lowing, with some it is more grunting. They do not 

 breed more than once a year, and the female seldom brings forth 

 more than one calf at a time. 



Before showing from whence our domesticated races and those 

 of other states of Europe are derived, I consider it more desirable 

 first to describe the wild species, the fossil bones of which have 

 been found in the turf-bogs in the south of Scania. These are 

 divided into those which have — 



a. The forehead more long than broad, more or less flattened, 

 the horns growing from the extremity of the angle which divides 

 the vertex from the occiput ; the intermaxillary bone generally 

 reaches up to the nasal bones. To this class belong — 



1. Uroxen (Bos Urus, Antiqu.* Bos primigenius, Recentiorum). 



Bos primigenius, Recentiorum- 

 The forehead flat ; the edge of the neck straight, the horns 



* The denomination Urox is derived from that language which the Ger- 



