PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 



1839. No. 15. 



January 28. 



SIR Wm. R. HAMILTON, A. M., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Ball read a paper on the Remains of Oxen found in 

 the Bogs of Ireland. 



Having alluded to the occurrence of fossil remains of 

 oxen in Britain, and the existence of the Auroch or Wild 

 Ox, in some parks in that country, he remarked on the 

 old and generally received opinion, that Ireland could not 

 furnish any evidence of having ever possessed an indigenous 

 ox ; and he stated, that a specimen which he received from 

 the sub-marine forest, in the Bay of Youghal, seemed to have 

 been the core of a horn of the fossil ox, often found in Britain, 

 and supposed to have been the Urus ; but this specimen having 

 been lost, he alluded to it, to direct the attention of the Aca- 

 demy to the subject, in the hope of having his view confirmed. 

 He then entered upon the principal object of his paper, which 

 was to show, that the remains of oxen found at considerable 

 depths in bogs in Westmeath, Tyrone, and Longford, be- 

 longed to a variety or race, differing very remarkably from 

 any noticed in Cuvier's " Ossemens Fossiles," or any other 

 work with which he was acquainted. He concluded by ex- 

 pressing a conviction, that Ireland had possessed at least one 

 native race of oxen, distinguished by the convexity of the 

 upper part of the forehead, by its great proportionate length, 

 and by the shortness and downward direction of the horns. 

 As this fact seems to have escaped altogether the notice of 



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