398 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCLETY. [Mar. 21, 



extinct in his time ; but wlien we take into consideration the small 

 area that he saw of the country, and its physical condition, covered 

 with vast forests and pathless morasses, his silence does not seem to 

 be of any weight either for or against the extinction of the animal 

 at that time. The absence, however, of its remains from the very 

 numerous accumulations of bones of Bos Jongifrons, Eed Deer, Wild 

 Boar, and the like animals, which were the food of the people after 

 Britain was interpenetrated by Roman influence, makes it highly 

 probable that it was, to say the least, very scarce. It may perhaps 

 have still lingered on in the wilder parts of the country. To add 

 to the perplexity as to the date of its extinction, William Fitz- 

 Stephens, in his ' Life of Becket,' incidentally mentions the condition 

 of the country immediately to the north of London *. After descri- 

 bing the pleasant gardens that the citizens had out of town, the pas- 

 tures and hills, he says, '^ Close by there extends a great wilderness, 

 woodland glades, the lurking-places of wild beasts. Red Deer, Fallow 

 Deer, Wild Boars, and Wild Bulls" (tauri sylvestres). Whether or not 

 " taurus sylvestris " be synonymous with Bos urus in this passage 

 may be disputed, as it may be objected that perhaps it may mean 

 only the domestic cattle that were sent out into the woods to get 

 their own living. On the other hand, the fact of their being classed 

 under the head oi ferce, along with the Red Deer, Fallow Deer, and 

 Wild Boar, read by the light of records of the existence of the Urus 

 on the continent at that time, inclines me to the belief that they 

 were as undoubtedly wild in Britain in the middle of the 12th cen- 

 tury as the wild buR hunted by Charlemagne in the forest of Aix- 

 la-Chapelle, to be mentioned subsequently. That the Bison is not 

 meant is rendered almost certain by the absence of its remains from 

 any British formation posterior to the Pleistocene period. The 

 smaller Bos longifrons may perhaps be the animal meant in this 

 passage. Probably, however, the tJrus lived in Britain to Becket's 

 time in a wild state, modified in size according to its food and the 

 extent of its range, that of the Pleistocene being vastly larger than 

 that of the Prehistoric times, and the latter than those few survivors 

 in the struggle for life when the cultivated lands encroached more 

 and more on their feeding-grounds and the dread of the hunter was 

 upon them. The half- wild oxen of Chillingham Park in Northum- 

 berland, and other places in Northern and Central Britain, are pro- 

 bably the last surviving representatives of the gigantic Urus of the 

 Pleistocene period, reduced in size and modified in every respect by 

 their small range and their contact with man. 



On the mainland of Europe Bos urus was very numerous and had 

 a very extended range, both in Pleistocene and Prehistoric and 

 Historic times ; while in our own country, insulated from the con- 



* TJndique extra domos suburbanorum horti civiuiii arboribus consiti spatiosi 

 et speciosi contigui habentur. Item a borea sunt agri pascuae, et pratorum 

 grata planities aquis fluvialibus interfluis ; ad quas molinarum versatiles rotse 

 eitantur cum mm'mure jocoso. Proxime patet ingens foresta (not forest, but 

 uncultivated ground), saltus nemorosi, ferarum latebriE, cervorum, damarura, 

 aprorum, et taurorum sylvestrium. (Vita sancti Tbomse, auctore Willelmo filio 

 Stepbani, vol. i. p. 173). 8vo. Edidit E, A. Giles, Oxonite. 



