BOVIDE 367 
The true Oxen, or Taurine group, are now represented solely 
by Bos taurus and Bos indicus. Both of these species are now known 
only by domesticated races, unless the herds of the former preserved 
at Chillingham and some other British parks are the survivors 
of an original wild race. The dorsal ridge of the Bibovine group 
is here wanting; the horns are rounded, with their extremities 
directed backwards, and are placed at the extreme vertex of the 
skull; while the long frontal region is nearly flat; the temporal 
fossee scarcely intrude upon the occipital aspect of the skull; and 
the premaxille reach the nasals. The hoofs are large and rounded. 
It is known that wild Oxen were abundant in the forests of Europe 
at the time of Julius Cesar, by whom they were described as the 
Urus, equal to the German Aurochs ; and the large skulls found in 
turbary and Pleistocene deposits, and described under the name of 
Bos primigentus, can only be regarded as having belonged to the 
large original race of B. taurus, of which it has been thought the 
Chillingham cattle are smaller descendants! The subfossil skulls 
described as B. longifrons and B. frontosus must also be looked upon 
as referable to smaller races of the same species. That the domestic 
cattle of Europe are descendants from the various races of the same 
original species there can be no doubt, but in the case of the humped 
cattle of India (B. indicus) it is quite probable that their origin 
may be, at least in part, different. The extinct Bos namadicus, of 
the Pleistocene deposits of India, was a species with the general 
characters of the Taurine group, but with an inclination to a 
flattening of the horns, and with an approximation to a Bibovine 
type of occiput, as well as with the separation of the premaxille 
from the nasals. 
The earliest representatives of this group occur in the Pliocene 
of the Siwalik Hills in Northern India. One of these species 
(B. planifrons) appears to be allied to B. namadicus ; but the other 
(Bb. acutifrons) was a gigantic species characterised by the sharp 
median angulation of the frontal region, and the pyriform section 
of the enormous horn-cores. 
The extinct B. elatus, from the Upper Pliocene of France and 
Italy, is the representative of a generalised type, which may be 
known as the Leptobovine group. The males had rounded horn- 
cores widely separated at their bases, and placed low down on the 
forehead. The females (which have been described as Leptobos) were 
often or always hornless. The limbs were unusually slender. 
This group also occurs in the Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills. 
1 The late Mr. Alston, Fauna of Scotland, ‘‘ Mammalia” (Glasgow, 1880), p. 25, 
considers that the Chillingham cattle are descendants of a race which had escaped 
from domestication. 
