3S6 BRITISH MAMMALS 



well known to the early Aryans, and its names in Gothic 

 (Wisent) and Greek (Bison) are obviously akin.^ 



Bos taurus primigenius. The Urus or Aurochs 



This magnificent beast was known to the Romans through 

 their conquests of Gaul, Germany, and Austria. They found 

 that it was called by the Gothic races Ur or Aur. This they 

 Latinised into Urus, while the name descended into modern 

 German in the forms of Aurochs {i.e., Ur Ox). The Canton of 

 Uri, in Switzerland, was named after this creature, which once 

 inhabited its forested mountains. The Aurochs, or Bos taurus 

 primigenius, is the culmination of the Taurine type of the Bovine 

 genus, and, like nearly everything else, has to be referred back 

 for its origin to Asia, and in Asia to India. Here it seems to 

 have arisen from the Bibovine stock, very near to where the 

 Bisontine forms branch oiF ; in fact, there is a good deal of 

 kinship in origin between the Taurine and Bisontine races, in 

 both of which the horns are rather more cylindrical and less 

 flattened or less angular than in the buffaloes. In both these 

 groups, moreover, there is a great tendency to excessive growth 

 of the shaggy hair on the head and neck of the male. Where 

 the horns of the Taurine stock differ from the other groups is 

 also in their tendency to a forward direction. This is by no 



^ It is a great pity that some reformer cannot arise in the United States to 

 rectify the incorrect nomenclature of our American brothers, a nomenclature 

 due in some instances to actual perversity and " contradictiousness.'' As the 

 word buffalo has been applied for many centuries to the most primitive group 

 of cattle existing in Asia and Africa only, and as the name bison has such an 

 interesting Aryan pedigree, and was always applied in ancient times to this 

 distinct group of high-shouldered, heavily-maned oxen (the only group that 

 ever reached America), it is a pity that Americans still persist in writing and 

 speaking of buffaloes where they ought to use the word bison. In the same 

 way they persist in giving the Scandinavian name of elk to American red 

 deer, which we know as the wapiti, from a Canadian Indian word. The 

 American antelope (prongbuck) is not an antelope, the puma is not a lion 

 or a. panther, and XhQ jaguar is not a tiger. Whilst they continue to use the 

 English language they might at least strive to apply the correct English name 

 to their indigenous animals. 



