392 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 21, 



in time, is the object of this essay. The three species which come 

 under our notice are — 1. The Great TJrus, Bos urus of Julius Caesar ; 

 2. The Small Short-horn, Bos longifrons of Professor Owen; 3. 

 The Bison, Bos bison of Plinj. 



The problem as to the origin of our domestic races of cattle is only 

 to be solved by a careful examination of each of these three European 

 fossil animals. Of the three, we shall begin with the Bos Urus of 

 Julius Caesar. 



2. Chaeactees. 



The Bos urus, or the Bos primigenius of Bojanus*, is cha- 

 racterized, according to the latter, by the concavity of the fore- 

 head, by the prominence of its orbits, which have not such a for- 

 ward direction as in Bos taurus, and by the large size of the neural 

 spines of the dorsal vertebrae. The large horns also have a double 

 curvature, first outwards, and then forwards and upwards. Pro- 

 fessor Mssont, describing the remains of this animal found in Scania, 

 describes it as characterized by the flatness of forehead, the straight- 

 ness of " the edge of the neck," and by the horns being very large 

 and long, near the roots directed outward and somewhat backward, 

 in the middle bent forward, and towards the points turned a little 

 upwards. Baron Cuvier, on the other hand, writes, with reference 

 to the skulls of this animal that he had examined J, " The general 

 contour of the frontal bone, its concavity, and the reentering curve 

 which bounds it above, and which extends as a crest from one horn to 

 the other, the acute angle that the surface of the frontal makes with 

 that of the occipital, the circumference of the latter, the temporal 

 fossa, are absolutely the same in these two skulls as in the common 

 Ox (Bos taurus)." In the horn-core of the Urus he can detect no 

 differences of specific value as compared with the former animal, in 

 which almost every variation of curvature is to be found; while at 

 the same time the fact that the horn- core of the TJrus, after bending 

 outwards, bends back upon itself a little downwards and forwards, 

 instead of presenting the regular double curvature of that of the 

 common Ox, outwards and more or less upwards or forwards, is well 

 worthy of remark. The common Ox, however, presents every varia- 

 tion in the size of its horns, sometimes being entirely hornless, as 

 in a Welsh, Scotch, and Islandic breed, at others having them most 

 enormously developed, as in the Sanga or Galla Ox of Abyssinia, in 

 which variety, according to Father Lobos (quoted by Zimmerman, 

 Spec. Zool. Geograph. 4to, 1778, p. 110), the horn is sufficiently 

 large to contain more than ten quarts. A walk into a cattle market 

 will convince the most sceptical of observers that the common Ox 

 presents also almost every variation possible in the shape and the 

 direction of the horns. In fine, a very careful comparison of the 

 skulls of Bos urus in Britain with those of the various varieties 

 of Bos taurus or the common Ox, compels me to believe that there 



* Ifev. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur. xiii. 2. p. 424, 1. 24. 



t Anaa. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1849, vol. iv. ser. 2. p. 257-258. 



:t 'Oss. JFoss. t. iv. p. 150, 3rd edit. 1825. 



