Bovine Animals of Scandinavia, 41 7 



the border of the occiput lies about 3 \ inches behind the roots 

 of the horns ; at the back of this border the occiput is more trans- 

 verse and not so concave as in the foregoing species of true Bos. 

 The foramen of the occiput smaller towards the front, almost 

 triangular, with the front angle obtuse. The horn-cores, resting 

 on pedicles, are directed outward and somewhat backward, also 

 curved in a crescent, in one direction only, which is forward and 

 somewhat upward. The temporal cavity very small in the 

 centre, the ends widened, the front somewhat broader than the 

 back. Atlas : the wings transverse, of equal breadth in front 

 and back, 8 in. 4 lin., with obtuse back lobes; the upper curva- 

 ture strongly convex with a transverse knob in the centre ; the 

 lower with a round knob in the middle (somewhat more distant 

 from the front than the back margin). Epistropheus short, 

 broad ; its process, spinos. forms a high ridge, which is highest 

 and most projecting towards the back (its hind margin broad), 

 and forms an angle towards the front projecting over the pro- 

 cess, odontoideus. Along the under side is a ridge, which does 

 not go backward past the margin of the concave posterior articular 

 surface. Foramen medullse spinalis in front three-sided, almost 

 heart-shaped. The process, transversi of the cervical vertebrae 

 curved upwards. In other respects it differs from the Urus, 

 which in bulk it most resembles, through the spinous processes 

 of the anterior dorsal vertebrae, which are longer in the Bison, 

 about 1 ft. 6-7 in., in the Urus about 1 ft. and a couple of inches ; 

 by its larger, and particularly longer shoulder-blades ; narrower 

 rib- bones, of which it has fourteen pairs, the broadest of which 

 is 2 in. (in the Urus quite 2:5); on the other hand it has not 

 more than five lumbar vertebras*. 



For am. obtur. oblong-oval. Extremities generally somewhat 

 higher and less stoutly built than in the Urus. In order 

 that we may form some idea of the magnitude of this extinct 

 animal as compared with the present, we will insert here the 

 measurement of some of the bones in that beautiful skeleton of a 

 Lithuanian Aurochs, which was killed a few years ago, and pre- 

 sented to the British Museum by the Emperor of Russia, and a 

 fossil skeleton of the ancient period, dug up from a turf-bog at 

 Bjersjoholm, in southern Scania near Ystad, and now preserved in 

 the Zoological Museum in Lundf. (Compare further the 

 skeleton of the Bos primigenius, pp. 258-261.) 



* The Reindeer has the same number of ribs and lumbar vertebrae. The 

 Stag, on the contrary, has the same as the Urus. 



•f This remarkable discovery from antiquity, the like of which, as far as 

 I know, no other museum in Europe can show, was sent as a present to 

 the University's Museum in Lund in the year 1812, by the then possessor 

 of the estate Bjersjoholm, Major Cock. 



Ann. % Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. iv. 28 



