2 ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC CATTLE. 



lation of the ox and kindred species — had lived in Britain 

 at the time of the Mammoth, sharing with many varieties 

 of extinct mammalia the luxuriant herbage that distin- 

 guished the flora of Northern Europe prior to the glacial 

 period. Its fossil remains, along with those of the ele- 

 phant, rhinoceros, &c., have been dug up from the drift 

 and fresh- water deposits of the Newer-Pliocene formation. 

 There is little doubt that, outliving many of its earlier 

 associates, and finding new companions as it passed from 

 age to age, the ox, of one or other variety, has since that 

 remote period had constant existence in Northern Europe. 



The varieties of the ox which in the prehistoric era 

 roamed in the sweet freedom of nature through the British 

 forests and marshes have been arranged by palteontolo- 

 gists into two main divisions. The line of demarcation — to 

 minds of a practical turn somewhat arbitrary — seems well 

 enough understood by naturalists. The two types or 

 species differed materially in size, and also, to a varying 

 extent, in some other points of lesser importance. In the 

 strictest sense of the term, however, they presented no 

 structural differences. The larger was named the Bos primi- 

 genius by Eojanus, and is likewise known as the Bos urus. 

 To the smaller, Owen gave the designation of Bos longi- 

 frons. Other species of fossil European oxen are spoken 

 of by various writers, notably the Bos frontosus and the 

 Bos trochoceros, but all these are now generally regarded 

 as identical with either the Bos primigenius or the Bos 

 longifrons. Eiitimeyer considers the Bos trochoceros to be 

 the female of an early domesticated form of the Bos primi- 

 genius, and to be the progenitrix of the Bos frontosus. 



The Bos urus is described as having been an animal of 

 enormous size and ferocious temper. When the Eomans 

 first penetrated into the heart of Britain, more than half 

 a century before the dawn of the Christian era, they 

 found the great urus roaming wildly through the forests 

 and marshes. Caesar describes this animal as being in 



