396 PKOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 21, 



36 inches long, the span of the horn-cores is 42 inches, and the 

 breadth of the forehead between the horn-cores 10-5 inches*. Dr. 

 Fleming notices the large size of the skulls of oxen from the marl- 

 pits underlying the peat of Scotland, and speaks of one in his pos- 

 session as being 27"5 inches long, with a span of 9 inches between 

 the bases of the horn-cores, and of 11'5 across the orbits. He 

 considers them to have belonged to a species of Bos taurus f. 



All the cases cited above, with the exception of that found on 

 the banks of the Avon, near Eath, which may perhaps be of the same 

 date as elephantine and leonine remains found in the neighbouring 

 gravels, are of a date posterior to the extinction of the Mammoth, 

 tichorhine Khinoceros, Cave-bear, and other animals character- 

 istic of the Pleistocene period in Central, Western, and Northern 

 Europe, and are derived from deposits either of peat or of marl 

 beneath it, or from tumuli. They are therefore of Prehistoric age. 

 The few remaining measurements that I shall give are those of the 

 skulls and horn-cores of the same species that boast of a vastly 

 greater antiquity, and which were associated with the remains of 

 the Pleistocene Mammals, both in the caverns and in river-deposits 

 of that early period. 



Mr. Brown, of Stanway, to whom we are indebted for the discovery 

 and preservation of the remains of a large number of Pleistocene 

 mammals, describes a skull of this species, along with the molar of a 

 Eleplias primigenius, in the drift of Clacton in Essex J. Each of its 

 cores measures 36 inches in length following the outer curvature, 

 and has a basal diameter of 6 x 5 inches. Professor Owen de- 

 scribes a second skull, obtained by Mr. J. Wickham Elower, F.G.S., 

 from the drift of Heme Bay, as possessed of horn- cores measuring 

 along the outer curve 39 inches, mth abasal circumference of 18-85. 

 A remarkably fine pair of horn- cores have also been obtained from 

 the brick-earth at Crayford, in Kent, belonging to the low-level 

 series of gravels and brick- earths of Mr. Prestwich. Their basal 

 circumference is 16-6 inches, and their length, following the outer 

 curvature, 35 inches. They are preserved in the collection of Mr. 

 Grantham, to whom I am indebted for their examination. A large 

 number of other cases of the remains of this species having been 

 found in Britain may be cited, as in the river-deposits near Erith, 

 Maidstone, Hford, Wickham, Brentford, Bielbecks in Yorkshire, 

 and Eisherton in Wilts, and in the caverns of Kent's Hole, Oreston, 

 and many others. As sufficient evidence has been given for the 

 variation in size of the head and of the horn-cores of the species, 

 their measurements would serve no special purpose in this place. 

 The measurements of the long bones and lower jaws will be given in 

 a tabular form in the essay upon the Aurochs, or Bison prisms of 

 Professor Owen. 



One point is very remarkable with reference to the development 

 of the horn-cores and the size of the animal — that just as the. 



* Op. cit. p. 512. 



t British Animals. 8vo. Lond. & Edin. 1828 : p. 24. 



+ Mag. Nat. Hist. n. s. 1838, p. 163, 



