﻿INTRODUCTION. xxv 



Cuvier's opinion that the living and the fossil belong to the same species. 1 The smaller 

 varieties are those to which Professor Owen applies the name of Bison minor. 



Genus Bos. Species Bos primigenius, Bojanus. — Numerous horncores and skulls and 

 other remains in various parts of Britain attest the former existence of the great Urus 

 {Bos primigenius) in Britain during the Pleistocene period. It has been found in Scot- 

 land near Edinburgh, and in the gravels of the Avon and Thames, and in a large number 

 of other localities. 



Species Bos longifrons} — A second species of true ox, the small short-horned Bos 

 longifrons, has been described by Professor Owen from the river-deposits of Clacton and 

 Walton, and Kensington, associated with the mammoth {Elephas primigenius), and from 

 Bricklingham, in the valley of the Avon, along with Bison prisons and Bos primigenius. 

 On the other hand, all the smaller Bovine remains of Pleistocene age that we have examined, 

 are proved by the associated horncores to belong to the bison, and not to Bos longifrons, 

 many bones of which, from their strong resemblance to those of the former, have been a 

 frequent cause of error in the absence of horncores. We have already spoken of Bos 

 longifrons as being probably a variety of Bos taurus, of which also Bos primigenius is 

 probably a second and extreme variety. Professor Nilsson, of Lund, 8 considers the latter 

 as the ancestor of the large-horned Flemish oxen, and Professor Owen thinks that in all 



1 Op. cit., t. iv, p. 140. 



2 It is a remarkable fact that out of all the localities in Europe where Pleistocene mammals occur 

 those given in the "British Fossil Mammals" should alone furnish proofs of the coexistence with the extinct 

 mammalia of an ox that subsequently was brought under the rule of man, and kept in great herds in 

 France, Britain, and Switzerland, in Prehistoric and Historic times. With respect to the remains of Bos 

 longifrons washed up along with Elephas antiquus and rhinoceros on the coast at Walton and Clacton ; a 

 parallel case at Selsea, on the Sussex sea-board, inclines me to hesitate in inferring their contemporaneity 

 from the fact of their having been washed up together. While engaged in the Geological Survey of the 

 latter district in 1863, I found that there were two deposits of widely different age, lying side by side at 

 the mouth of Paghani Harbour ; the one Preglacial, underlying the Boulder-clay, containing Elephas antiquus 

 and the mammoth, the other estuarine, of comparatively recent formation, and containing Bos longifrons, 

 and red deer. The latter is deposited on the same Eocene plateau as the former, the ancient estuary having 

 worn away the Preglacial forest-bed, the Boulder-clay, and the Preglacial river-deposits. The remains from 

 both these deposits, washed out by the waves, were precisely in the same mineralogical condition, and both 

 were stained of the same dark colour, and had I not been able to trace the remains of Bos longifrons to the 

 estuarine mud, where one hind and one fore extremity of the animal remained in situ, with every bone in 

 place, I should have been compelled to believe that the Bos longifrons of Pagham coexisted with the 

 Elephas antiquus of the forest-bed. May not the similar association of the remains on the shores of 

 Walton and Clacton be accounted for in some such manner ? While paying all possible deference to the 

 views of our most eminent comparative anatomist upon the contemporaneity of Bos longifrons with the 

 Preglacial mammalia, the evidence seems to be of such a nature as to leave the question of the existence of 

 the animal in Pleistocene times entirely open. With reference to the other localities, where this species is 

 alleged to occur, Kensington and Bricklingham, satisfactory evidence of its association with Pleistocene 

 mammals seems to me to be wanting. — W. B. D. 



3 Tom. cit. (1849). 



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