1866.] DAWKINS FOSSIL BKITISH OXE]\\ 397 



Urus mentioned by Cgesar as '' magnitudine panlo infra elephantos," 

 and that found in the peat and in the marl beneath m France, 

 Northern Germany, and Scandinavia, surpassed the average uncas- 

 trated Bos taurus of Western and Central Europe in size, so were 

 they exceeded in size by those that inhabited the same area in the 

 Pleistocene period. The more abundant food afforded by the vast 

 prairie grounds of the Pleistocene continent would naturally cause 

 the Pleistocene Urus to attain to a higher pitch of development than 

 the more restricted range and food, after the submergence of the 

 Pleistocene lowlands, of the species in Prehistoric and m Historic 

 times where, moreover, it would have a hard battle to fight for its 

 very existence with the most formidable of the beasts of prey— with 

 man This is the only hypothesis that I can suggest to account 

 for the larger size of nearly aU the Pleistocene Mammalia as com- 

 pared with those descendants of them now living in the same area. 



5. Eange in Space and Time. 

 That the Bos urus or Bos primigenius was a contemporary of the 

 Mammoth, leptorhine, megarhine, and tichorhine Ehinoceros is 

 proved by its occurrence in the brick-fields of Crayford, in Kent, 

 abeady mentioned. Besides the above, it was associated with 



Fehs speliea. Cervus elaphus. 



Ursus spel^us. Elephas antiquus. 



Ursus arctos. Equus f ossilis. ^ 



Bison priscus. _ Arvicola amphibia. 



Megaceros Hibernicus. 

 In the brick-earths on the opposite side of the Thames it is 

 associated with the Hii^popotamus major at Grays, m Essex. The 

 associated remains, indeed, from many other localities such as that 

 given above leave no room to doubt that it wandered through the 

 Pleistocene woodlands in Prance, Germany, and Britain _ with 

 the other mammalia of the period. A table of the distribution ot 

 Pleistocene Mammalia in my possession proves that it was^ far 

 less numerous in Britain than its smaller contemporary the Bison, 

 or Bison priscus of Professor Owen. In Prehistoric times, after the 

 Elephants and Bhinoceroses of the Pleistocene period had passed 

 away, and the Cave-hyenas and Cave-lions had retreated from Western 

 and Central Europe southwards, it still held its ground m France, 

 Germany, and Scandinavia; and from the instances cited of the 

 occurrence of its remains, it seems to have become relatively more 

 numerous than the Bison, which also survived in Europe, but which, 

 so far as I know, has not yet been detected in any Prehistoric de- 

 posit in Britain or Ireland. The case of the skull of this species 

 being found under the tumulus at Calne, associated with theremams 

 of the feasts and the fragments of pottery of some ancient British 

 tribe, proves that the Urus was hunted in those early days m Wilt- 

 shire. The date of its extinction in Britain is, to say the least, 

 a very vexed question. Professor Owen infers, from the condition 

 of the remains from the Scotch peat-bogs, that it retained its ground 

 longest in Scotland ; Nilsson infers, from Csesar's silence, that it was 



