12 WILD WRITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



attacked at night the camels carrying the provisions of 

 the army.* And these wild bulls could not have been 

 Bisons, but must have been Uri, the extraordinary size 

 of their horns being clearly distinctive of the Urus ; 

 for these, Herodotus says, were so large that they were 

 in consequence exported to Hellas (Greece). The 

 existence of these wild bulls is confirmed by Hippo- 

 crates, a writer who shortly followed ; and, subsequently, 

 Philip of Macedon is said to have hunted and 

 destroyed on Mount Orbela, in consequence of its 

 devastations, a beast of this description, and to have 

 hung up its spoils in the vestibule of the temple of 

 Hercules. During the time of the Roman Empire, 

 which extended itself to the barbarous regions north of 

 Italy and Greece, (these barbarous regions being the 

 native country of the Urus on the Continent), this 

 animal was well known, and is mentioned by various 

 Latin writers too numerous to quote. Some of these, 

 like Martial, called him, through ignorance, the Bubalus, 

 or the Bison, when they really meant the Urus. 

 Others better informed, like Seneca, distinguished these 

 cattle from others, and gave them their proper name 



of Uri:— 



" Tibi dant varise pectora tigres, 



Tibi villosi terga bisontes, 



Latisque feri cornibus uri" 



But perhaps the best descriptions of the wild Urus 

 are those given by Pliny and by Csesar. Pliny says : 

 " Germany, coterminous with Scythia, produces two 

 kinds of wild cattle: one, the Bison, distinguished by 

 his mane ; the other, of excessive strength and swift- 



* Herodotus, Kb. vii., c. 124-6. See also Professor Eawlinson's 

 "Herod." vol. iv., p. 102, 3. 



