THE BO VINES 353 



Anoa). In these archaic types of oxen the horns diverge but 

 slightly from the median line of the skull, present no boss in 

 front between the horn cores, and lie backwards almost parallel 

 with the ridge of the neck, and very nearly in the same line 

 as the profile of the nose. In all the developments of oxen 

 from this primitive type, however, the direction of the horns is 

 greatly changed, and the tendency is for the horn cores to grow 

 outwards almost at right angles to the median line of the skull, 

 while the tips of the horns are either directed backwards or 

 upwards and forwards. In the original types of Bos taurus, the 

 domestic ox, the direction of the horns is almost the exact 

 reverse of what it was in the primitive oxen. 



So far as specialised features are concerned, the oxen have 

 developed somewhat peculiar molar teeth in the upper jaw, 

 with very long and square-shaped crowns, on the inner side 

 of which there is a slender, cylindrical additional column.-' 

 There is never any trace of the upper canine teeth. Horns are 

 present in both male and female of the existing forms. There 

 are no face glands or tear pits. The young are scarcely ever 

 marked with white spots, except such slight remains of these 

 markings as may occur in the young and adult buffaloes of 

 the Malay Archipelago. The stomach is, perhaps, more 

 highly developed for rumination than in any of the other 

 Pecorines. On the other hand, there is a gall-bladder 

 persisting which has been lost by so many antelopes and by 

 all True Deer. 



For the origin of the oxen we must again go back to Asia, 

 where, with the exception of the camels and rhinoceroses, most 

 of the higher mammals have been evolved. India or thereabouts 

 was the district in which the Bovine type first differentiated from 

 a form of Hollow-horned Ruminant, allied on the one hand to 



^ The upper molar teeth of the nilghai (the nearest living ally to the 

 oxen) are also long-crowned, and there is a large accessory column in 

 those of the upper jaw. In the rest of the Tragelaphs the molars are 

 short-crowned, but those in the upper jaw possess a small inner accessory 

 column. 



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