Habitation and Destruction of the Mammoths. 437 



But, besides these former encompassing lands, there are certain 

 tracts within Russia, which, though now of no great altitude, are so 

 exempt from debris and drift, that it is natural to infer they may 

 have formed low islets in the ancient waters which covered the great 

 mass of the present lands. This view we would support by an 

 illustration drawn from natural history and the nature of the 

 ground. 



Of all the remarkable quadrupeds which ranged over continents, 

 one species only now remains alive (and this point even is doubtful)* 

 to connect the historic era, or the present outline of the land with 

 that which preceded it. This is the Bos Urus (Aurochs) or primeval 

 ox, whose bones are so frequently associated with those of the 

 mammoth in different parts of Russia and many parts of Europe. 

 But if the species be the same, how has this exception been made, 

 and how have herds of these oxen been preserved in a living state ? 



* Notwithstanding the deep interest attached to the Bos Aurochs, which 

 may, we suppose, prove to be the only existing remnant of the great quadru- 

 peds of former days, there does not exist a single skeleton or stuffed 

 specimen of the species either in France or the British Isles. As far as 

 England is concerned, this reproach is about to be removed through the 

 munificence of the Emperor Nicholas, who, at the request of Mr. Murchison 

 (graciously supported by his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Michael), 

 has directed that a fine animal, selected from the unique herd now living 

 in the forest called Bialavieja, should be killed, and his skin and skeleton 

 sent to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. It may not be known 

 that without a stringent ukase to prohibit its annihilation, the peasantry 

 of Lithuania would long ago have exterminated this noble species. Though 

 we have been led to believe in the specific identity of this Lithuanian 

 Aurochs with the extinct Urus ( Urus priscus of Bojanus and V. Meyer), 

 that opinion is not generally admitted. But we may hope that the question 

 will be set at rest, as soon as Professor Owen has the means of testing it. 

 If the living Aurochs be the real descendant of the great fossil animal, it 

 might, judging from the usual difference of size, be considered to have 

 degenerated ; though in the Museum at Warsaw, where we have seen three 

 specimens which are there preserved, one of them is nearly double the size 

 of the other two. We ourselves procured a very remarkable front and 

 horns of the Bos Aurochs, found in the gravel west of Perm, with mam- 

 moth's teeth, and M. Hommaire de Hell, also, found a fine head of the same 

 in the steppes between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian. 



