ORDER RUMINANTIA. 411 



cipital surface; horns first projecting laterally from the sides 

 of the head, then curving downwards : they are placed on 

 the skull at a considerable distance anterior to the union of 

 the facial and occipital surfaces. The specimen, injured, 

 and wanting the face and jaws, was found in Big-bonelick, 

 near the falls of Ohio. The affinity seems to be nearest to 

 the Tartaric Yak. 



The Taurine Group. 



We have now reached the last group of ruminating ani- 

 mals, that which constitutes the most useful and important 

 gift to man in a social state. The immense advantages 

 derived from the domesticated Ox in the beginning of 

 human civilization, may be gathered from the conspicuous 

 part its name and attributes perform in the early history of 

 mankind. We find the Bull among the signs of the zodiac ; 

 it typifies the sun in more than one system of mythology ; 

 the supreme power as Jupiter among the Greek and 

 Roman ; the strength of war with Mars ; the sinews of 

 commerce with Mercury, but still typifying the sun ; the 

 Dolichenus among the Sequanian Gauls. The Bull was 

 personally worshipped by the names of Apis and Mnevis 

 among the Egyptians, and is still venerated in India. The 

 Cow is repeatedly a mystical type of the earth in the 

 systems of ancient Greece, or a form of Bhavani with the 

 Hindoos, and still more marked in the lunar arkite worship 

 of the Celtic nations. The Hindu Vedas consider it as 

 the primordial animal, the first created by the three kinds 

 of gods, who were directed by the supreme Lord to furnish 

 the earth with animated beings. The Ox first enabling 

 man to till the ground, was a direct cause of private ter- 

 ritorial property and of its consequences, wealth*, com- 



* Hence the Ox stamped upon the money of Attica ; hence the 

 Cow is a representative of money in ancient Irish transactions. 



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