THE £0 VINES 



357 



means universal amongst the Taurine group. It is never met 

 with in the kindred species "Bos indicus,^ which has had something 

 to do with the foundations of our breeds of domestic cattle. 

 There is some slight indication of this forward direction of 

 the horn tips in the yak, in the bisons, and in the East Asian 

 Bibovines. In all these cases, however, the forward direction of 

 the horns is much more associated with their upward than with 

 their horizontal growth. In a magnificent extinct species of 

 Taurine ox (Sw acutifrons) which developed enormous horns in 

 India (each core of which may have been 5 ft. long) the horns 

 first grew out at right angles from the median line of the skull, 

 but then, instead of curling round and forwards, they drooped 

 down at the sides, each forming nearly a half-circle in its growth. 

 A primitive type of Taurine ox (Soj namadicus) existed in Southern 

 England during the Pleistocene period, and its remains are 

 associated with human flint weapons. From India "Bos taurus 

 spread in its wild form into Northern Africa and Central and 

 Western Europe. No form of this type ever reached America 

 (as a wild species). 



The original wild form of Bos indicus is completely extinct. 

 This was, perhaps, the first of the two Taurine species to be 

 domesticated, and in this condition it early reached the Mediter- 

 ranean Basin and North-east Africa. The wild forms of Bos 

 taurus in North Africa (5w taurus mauritanicus) also seem tc 

 have been domesticated locally, when the earliest types of 

 Caucasian races established themselves in that part of the 

 Mediterranean Basin, and in ancient — indeed, in modern — Egypt 

 we have descendants of the two principal stocks of domesticated 

 cattle, the Taurine and the Indicine, co-existing and mingling. 

 The Mauritanian cattle descended from the North African Bos 

 taurus are generally to be distinguished by the smoothness of 

 their coat and their uniform mouse-colour deepening into 

 blackish-brown. 



In fact, the coloration in this breed is very much what 



^ Bos indicus is nearest, perhaps, to Bos taurus, but it also displays slight 

 traces of affinity with the Bibovine (Gaur-Gayal) group. 



