Bovine Animals of Scandinavia. 267 



Scania, which evidently belongs to that period when the inhabit- 

 ants there used bronze for their weapons. This war-horn in form 

 and curvature wholly resembles the horn-core upon the cranium 

 of an Urox, and has the same long, thin, upturned points, like 

 the ox in Hamilton Smith's drawing. It is more than probable 

 that the inhabitants of the south of Sweden first used the horn 

 of the Urox for their war-horns, and at a later period made them- 

 selves horns of bronze in the same form as the former. To this may 

 be added, that Baron Sigesm. Herberstain relates in his * Rerum 

 Moscoviticarum Commentar/ of the year 1549, p. 33, that in his 

 time, about the latter half of the sixteenth century, there was 

 found in Massovia a species differing from the wild Lithuanian 

 Zubr, which in its native land was called Thur. They were not 

 found there in any large number, but were kept in some parks, 

 and there were certain burthens laid on the towns to preserve 

 and maintain them. In the same manner the Bison (Pol. Zubr) 

 is now kept in a large forest at Bialowieza in Lithuania, by 

 command of the Emperor of Russia* ; and, in like manner, a race 

 of wild oxen is still preserved in Scotland in some woody parks f 

 (Compare Bell, Brit. Quadr. p. 422) : a stuffed specimen of one 

 of these animals is preserved in the British Museum %. 



Again, the above-mentioned painting, which Hamilton Smith 

 copied, shows that the Urus was without mane, and had pretty 

 smooth hair over the whole body, with the exception of the flat- 

 (not convex) formed forehead, where it was longer and curly; 

 the head was large, the neck thick, the dewlap small, the back 

 straight, and tail long, so that it reached to the middle of the 

 tarsi. The colour was entirely sooty black, the chin alone was 

 white ; the horns, which were straight-out, forward, and upward, 

 were whitish with long black points §. 



* See the Note of M. Dimitri de Dolmatoffin vol. iii. of the New Series 

 of the 'Annals,' p. 148; and Prof. Owen's notes on the Anatomy of the 

 Bison at p. 288 of the present Number. — Ed. Ann. Nat. Hist. 



f Notices relative to the wild oxen of Britain will be found in the earlier 

 volumes of the ' Annals:' see vol. ii. p. 274, and vol. iii. pp. 241 and 356. 

 — Ed. Ann. Nat. Hist. 



X It has been said that this " White Scotch Bull " was the last remnant 

 of the Urus in its half-wild state ; but such is certainly not the case. Our 

 large Holstein cattle come much nearer to the Urus, both as to the form of 

 head and the size and direction of the horns. In the Scotch, the horns are 

 curved upward, almost only in one direction ; the hair on the head and neck is 

 longer and curlier; the forehead is, however, smooth ; the colour white, the 

 ears a reddish brown, the head and neck with a gray-brown shade. There 

 is no race of wild oxen of this colour. It is a pity that no cranium has yet 

 been preserved of it ; at least not one is to be met with in the Museums in 

 London. 



§ Hamilton Smith adds in a note, that this painting agrees with a figure 

 which is found in the ' Stone of Clunia ' with a Celtiberian inscription, and 

 which represents a huntsman and a wild ox. 



18* 



