398 " LECTURE XIII. 



described the relics of a small species of oxen wMch are fre- 

 quently found in postpliocene strata in England associated 

 with the bones of the elephant and rhinoceros^ and in the peat 

 bogs of Ireland with those of Irish elk fMegaceros Ribernicus) , 

 and in more recent formations with those of the common stag 

 and Roman antiquities. Owen supposes it to be the original 

 stock of the small short-horned and hornless cattle which are 

 bred in the highlands of Scotland and Wales under the name 

 of kyloes and runts, which in Owen's opinion, constituted 

 the tamed cattle of the Britons before the Roman invasion." 

 Owen had previously given to this species the better name of 

 Bos braclmjceros, whilst Rlitimeyer named it the marsh-cow. 

 The small slender-footed species, which appeared earlier in 

 England and Scandinavia, and was distinguished by its com- 

 paratively short and thick horns, was by the oldest inhabitants 

 of Wangen and Mosseedorf, during the stone period alone, 

 domesticated along with the urns and some other races. The 

 small uniformly coloured race of Switzerland, the so-called brown 

 cattle, the breeding of which on account of the richness of the 

 milk has reached the highest perfection in Schweitz, is no doubt 

 descended from the above, and perhaps also that race now 

 very common in Algiers and the north of Africa. 



In Concise and Chevraux on the Neufchatel lake were found 

 remains of an ox, with flat, almost square forehead and nearly 

 semicircular horns, the size of which is about one-third less 

 than that of its wild progenitor, but in other respects it resem- 

 bles that large species from the diluvium of Arezzo and Siena 

 known by the name of Bos trodioceros (curved-homed cattle) . 



It thus appears that this species of oxen had been imported 

 into the above-mentioned civihsed settlements from Italy, but 

 they were not bred there, and left in Switzerland no permanent 

 progeny. Whether the cow-race now spread in Central Italy 

 be descended from the old stock is worth investigation ; but 

 their importation afibrds a significant proof of the intercourse 

 of the later pile-builders with Italy. 



Besides these three races, or rather species (when their 

 remains were found in the diluvium, they were called well 

 marked species — but since they were recognised in a tamed 



