400 Note on the Fossil Buffalo [Aug. 



femur were chosen by Cuvier for one of the distinguishing types of 

 the fossil elephant, so it happens that the forehead and skull, with or 

 without the horns, are the only parts upon which reliance can be placed 

 for determining the specific character of the ruminantia. 



The present specimen is, with exception of the horns, as perfect as 

 could be desired ; the expanse of the forehead has its bony surface 

 uninjured, shewing the suture along the middle, (which is a sign that 

 the animal was not aged) and the attachment and bony process of the 

 left horn. On the under side, the condyles of the occiput protrude 

 through the stony mass ; and by carefully chiselling away some of the 

 stone, the position and form of the teeth on either side of the jaw have 

 been exposed to view. All the interior of the skull is filled with the 

 hard calcareous sandstone. 



The direction of the horns in the Hoshangdbdd fossil skull give it at 

 first sight the appearance of a buffalo's head : and the convexity and 

 breadth of the forehead as well as the angle of the occiput, both tend 

 to rank it with this genus : or at least certainly to separate it widely 

 from the aurochs and the domestic ox, as described in the following 

 perspicuous passage on the specific difference of these animals by the 

 Baron Cuvier. 



" Le front du bceaf est plat et meme un peu concave : celui de Yau- 

 rochs est bombe, quoiqu'un peu moins que dans le bujfle ; ce meme 

 front est carre dans le boeuf, sa hauteur etant a peu pres egale a sa 

 largeur, en prenant sa base entre les orbites ; dans Y aurochs en le 

 mesurant de meme, il est beaucoup plus large que haut, comme trois a 

 deux. Les comes seut attachees, dans le boeuf, aux extremites de la 

 ligne saillante la plus elevee de la tete, celle qui separe l'occiput du 

 front ; dans Y aurochs, cette ligne est deux pouces plus en arriere que 

 la racine des cornes ; le plan de l'occiput fait un angle aigu avec le 

 front dans le boeuf ; cet angle est obtus dans Y aurochs ; enfin ce plan 

 de l'occiput quadrangulaire dans le bozuf, represente un demi-cercle 

 dans Y aurochs. Ces caracteres assignes a l'espece du boeuf, ne sont pas 

 seulement ceux d'une ou deux varices ; ils se sont trouves constans, 

 non-seulement dans tous nos boeufs et vaches ordinaires, mais encore 

 dans toutes les varietes etrangeres que nous avons examinees." 



Those acquainted with the comparative anatomy of the Indian species 

 will be able to say whether these distinctions are here also equally 

 marked, and consequently to pronounce at once on the character of the 

 fossil skull. The latter has no point of resemblance to the fossil ox of 

 the Mississippi, described and depicted in the second volume of the 

 Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist, of New York, page 280. 



None of the fossil skulls, depicted in the Ossemens Fossiles, at all 

 resemble the present specimen : neither do the dimensions of the 



