1867.] 



BOYD DAWKINS — BOS lONGIFEONS. 



179 



next two are taken from Professor Nilsson's valuable work^ and the 

 last two from the specimens in the British Museum. 



Measurements of Horn -cores. 





Eichmond. 



1 



.i 





pi 



1 



l-H 







w 



1 



n 



s 



1 



Maximum length 



5-3 



3-9 2-6 



4-5 







30 



4-0 



4-0 



Basal circumference ... 



40 



3-9 3-4 



5-1 



71 



4-18 



4-5 





The horns themselves are found in the peat-bogs of Ireland. Two 

 in my possession, for which I am indebted to the Right Hon. the 

 Earl of Enniskillen, E.B.S., have respectively a basal measurement 

 of 10*5+ and 6-0 inches, and are 15*0 and 8-0 inches long. The 

 one is of a dark and the other of a light brown colour. Another 

 instance, also, of the horn being preserved is afforded by a specimen 

 dug up in an old channel of the Cam, near "Waterbeach, and now in 

 the Oxford Museum. It also is of a brown colour. Professor 

 Nilsson estimates the length of the animal in Scania as 6 feet 

 8 inches, exclusive of the tail *. Unfortunately there are no mate- 

 rials for estimating its length and height in Britain. The size, 

 however, of its bones proves it to have been the smallest of the Ox 

 tribe. 



5. Range in space and time. 



I must now pass to the consideration of the claims that the 

 animal has to be inserted in the list of Pleistocene Mammals. 

 Professor Owen writes that he found in the collection of the late 

 Mr. John Brown, of Stanway, ^^ some indubitable specimens of the 

 Bos longifrons from freshwater deposits which are rich in the re- 

 mains of Elephas and Rhinoceros." These consist of two skulls, the 

 one from the " newer Pliocene deposits at Clacton," and the other 

 from "Walton — two localities on the Essex shore, which have furnished 

 vast stores of the remains of the extinct Pachyderms. His argu- 

 ment is based on the supposition that all the fossil bones washed 

 up by the sea at these two places ai'e derived from the same beds, 

 and are therefore of the same geological age. In the ' Introduction 

 to the British Pleistocene Mammals,' in 1865, I expressed my doubts 

 about the soundness of this view, which have been amply confirmed by 

 a visit to Walton in the autumn of 1866. The mammaliferous stratum 

 lies at the bottom of the low cliffs between the high- and low-water 

 mark ; but this affords only a small percentage of the fossil remains. 

 The great majority are left by the sea at low water, lying on a pla- 

 teau of London Clay along with large Septaria, the wreck of the Red 

 Crag, and waifs and strays of all kinds, and may have been washed 

 out of deposits of two or three distinct ages. The condition of the re- 

 mains I obtained with my own hands indicated at least two distinct 



* Op. cit p. 352. 



