1866.] DAWKINS — FOSSIL BEITISH OXEN. 401 



the wild animals, the list comprises Bear, Wild Boar, Red Deer, Eoe 

 Deer, Fallow Deer, Chamois, Wild Horse {Equus feralis), the Beaver 

 (which is termed a fish, and therefore eatable on fast-days), the 

 Bison, and the Urus. The Bison and the Urns, then, were sufficiently 

 abundant in the wilds of Southern Germany and Switzerland at the 

 close of the 10th century to be used as an article of food, and to be 

 deemed worthy of a special grace by the monks of that day. At the 

 close of the next century (the eleventh) the Urus is mentioned along 

 with the Elk as being met with on the route through Germany taken 

 by the First Crusade, and the large size of their horns is noted*. 

 Posterior to this, in the 12th century, in the " Niebelungen-Lied," 

 Tregfried is said to have killed one Bison and four Uri in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Worms (p. 3775-6). For four centuries after this no 

 mention is made of the animal ; and if not extinct in Germany, it 

 must have become very rare. Gesner, in his ' History of Animals,' 

 published at Frankfort in the year 1622, gives a figure of the Polish 

 "Thur," which corresponds exactly in the curvature of its horns 

 with the wild Urus of Germany, though it is very much inferior to 

 the latter in point of size. The wild Urus, therefore, probably lin- 

 gered in the wilder parts of continental Europe till at least the 16th 

 century; and having first of all sprung into being in Pleistocene 

 times, survived the larger of its contemporaries, and is indeed 

 superior in point of bulk to any of the Pleistocene mammalia that 

 have come down to the times of history. In Pleistocene, as I have 

 mentioned, it was larger than in Prehistoric times, and in the 

 latter than when it was last met with in Poland. The diminution 

 in size is probably to be accounted for by the gradually diminish- 

 ing area over which it ranged. The area in Prehistoric and Historic 

 days was gradually lessened by the hand of man and the encroach- 

 ment of cultivation on its old haunts. 



6. Relatioist to Domestic Races. 

 The question that still remains to be discussed is, whether or not 

 it still lives in any of the domestic races. Professor Nilsson thinks 

 that the larger cattle of the Netherlands and Holstein have sprung 

 from this animal. Baron Cuvier and Professor BeH believe that the 

 Urus was, in part at least, the ancestor of our domestic breeds ; 

 while Professor Owenf thinks that the tame ox of Western Europe 

 was probably derived from the already domesticated cattle of the 

 Roman colonists. The evidence, on the whole, inclines me to the 

 belief, as there is no osteological or other difference saving that 

 of size between the Urus and the domestic race of cattle, (to pass 

 over the notice already quoted of the tame " bubalus " being- 

 hunted into the hermit's cell in Maine) that the larger cattle of 

 Western Europe at least are the descendants of the former animal, 

 modified in many respects by restricted range, but still more by 

 the domination of man. 



* " Uris cornua sunt immensse concavitatis, ex quibus ampla satis et levia pocula 

 fiunt." (Hist. Gest. Viae Hierosolymitanee a Fulcone quodam, Lib. i. [Du 

 Chesne, Hist. Franc.]) t O^p. cit.^.bQO. 



