2 PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



Shaw, 1 and Cuvier, 2 by whom it was also termed " Le Buffle Musque." M. de Blainville, 3 

 on the other hand, considering the animal intermediate in character between the Sheep 

 and the Ox, proposed the name of Ovibos mosc/tatus, which was adopted by Desmarest, 4 Sir 

 John Richardson, 5 and more lately by the great French Palaeontologist M. Lartet/' while 

 Professor Owen 7 believes that the animal has been subgenerically separated without due 

 grounds from the other Bubali, and especially from the Cape Buffalo (Bubalus Coffer), 

 and therefore figures and describes the animal under the name of Bubalus mosc/tatus. To 

 settle this conflict of opinion as to its true place in the zoological scale is the object of the 

 following analysis of its affinities, as well as to define the range of the animal in space and 

 in time, and to collect together all the evidence of its sojourn in this country during the 

 Pleistocene age. The two remarkable, allied forms discovered in the United States, 

 and described by Professor Leidy under the name of Bootherium, 8 add considerably to the 

 interest of an investigation into the characters of Ovibos. Before, however, we discuss 

 any of these questions, it will be necessary to enter very briefly on the natural history of 

 the animal. 



§ 2. Zoology? — The Ovibos moschatus about equals in size the small Welsh and 

 Scotch cattle. The head is large and broad, and the nostrils are oblong, inclining towards 

 each other from above downwards, with the inner margins covered with short bristles, 

 and joined together at their bases by an interspace of about an inch. The rest of the end 

 of the nose, the middle part of the upper lips, and the greater part of the lower lips and 

 chin, are covered with close, short, yellowish-white hairs ; the upper lip is furrowless, and 

 there is no trace of a muffle. These points alone would be sufficient to separate the 

 animal from the Bos and Bubalus, and relegate it to the ovine or caprine group of 

 Mammals. The ears are small, as in the Yak, being three inches in length, erect and 

 pointed, dilated in the middle. The dark umber-brown hair on the middle of the fore- 

 head is long and erect, on the cheeks smooth and pendulous, and forming with that on the 

 throat a long beard. The horns are closely united in the old bull in the median line, and 

 cover the brow and whole crown of the head with their bases. Each passes downwards 

 between the eye and the ear until it reaches the plane of the mouth, when it turns upwards 

 and forwards, and ends in the same plane as the eye. Their basal halves are of a dull 

 white colour, oval in section and coarsely fibrous, their middle smooth and shining, 



1 ' General Zool.,' ii, p. 407. 2 'Oss. Foss.,' iv, p. 133, ef seq. 



3 'Bull. Soc. Philomat.,' 1816, pp. 76 et 81. i ' Mammalogie.' 



b 'Fauna Borealis Americana,' vol. i (1829), and 'Zool. of H.M.S. Herald' (1852). 



' Comptes Rendus,' vol. lviii, 26. 



7 'Quart. Geol. Soc. Journ.,' vol. xii, pp. 136, 137. 



8 ' Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge,' vol. v, 1852. 



' The authorities which are the basis of this description are Pennant, Hearne, De Blainville, and 

 especially Sir John Richardson, tested by an examination of the species in the British Museum. In the 

 works of the latter the skeleton is admirably described. See ' Zoology of H.M.S. Herald.' 



