264 Prof. Nilsson on the extinct and existing 



my own eyes from a depth of 10 feet out of a turf -bog near to 

 Onnarp in the district of Wemmenshog in the south of Scania. 

 This skeleton affords an incontestable proof that the animal du- 

 ring its lifetime was in contact with man : it has on its back a 

 palpable mark of a wound from a javelin. Several celebrated 

 anatomists and physiologists of the present day, among whom 

 I need only mention the names of John Miiller of Berlin and 

 And. Retzius of Stockholm, have inspected this skeleton, and are 

 unanimous in the opinion, that this hole in question upon the 

 backbone is the consequence of a wound which during the life 

 of the animal was made by the hand of man, and therefore not 

 the least doubt can remain on this subject in the mind of any 

 competent judge who examines it. The animal must have been 

 very young, probably only a calf, when it was wounded. The 

 huntsman who cast the javelin must have stood before it. The 

 javelin, which entered at an extremely acute angle (which proves 

 a sharp-pointed instrument) on the external part near the edge 

 on the projection of the first lumbar vertebra, has pierced the 

 bone, passed out on the backward side, and pierced through the 

 projection of the next bone. The weapon, which probably re- 

 mained in the wound, had through suppuration ultimately fallen 

 out. The side of the opening where the javelin entered is more 

 round, surrounded by a callus, and in the inner part is a cavity 

 which shows there had been a great suppuration (Ur-invan. tab. 

 15. fig. 175). The opposite side of the aperture, which is more, 

 oblong in a vertical direction, and shows the form of the weapon, 

 is surrounded by many projections of bone (Ur-inv. tab. 15. fig. 

 176-177), which manifests that the animal lived at least one or 

 two years after it had been wounded. It was yet young when it 

 died, probably not more than three or four years old, and not un- 

 likely was drowned by falling through the ice into the water, 

 where in after-times a turf-bog has formed over it. The skeleton 

 lay with its head downwards, and one of its horns had penetrated 

 deep into the blue clay which formed the bottom under the turf. 

 As it is thus practically shown that this species of Ox lived con- 

 temporaneously with man, and as it is equally certain that the 

 same species of Ox lived here contemporaneously with the Rein- 

 deer and Elk (some of their fossil remains being not unfrequently 

 found together in our old turf-bogs) ; so it is more than proba- 

 ble that these animals, namely the Wild Ox with the flat fore- 

 head, the Reindeer and the Elk, also lived contemporaneously in 

 Germany, from whence they evidently came hither : and this is 

 so much the more certain, as bones of all three have also been 

 dug up from turf-bogs in Pomerania. But now Julius Caesar re- 

 lates (Bell. Gall. vi. 26-27), that among the animals which in his 

 time were known and found contemporaneously in the Hercynian 



