Hi PROLEGOMENA 



only notable circumstance about it.' The Koyal Society printed 

 in their transactions ' An Extract of a Letter from Mr. Hopkins 

 to Mr. John Senex, F.R.S., concerning an extraordinary large 

 Horn of the Stag Kind, taken out of the sea on the coast 

 of Lancashire. ' This Horn was drawn out of Raven's Barrow 

 Hole, adjoining to HolJcer Old Park, by the Net of a fisherman, 

 on the 27th of June 1727. The Tide flows constantly where 

 it was found, and the Land is very high near it. This Horn 

 is now in the Possession of Sir Thomas Lowther, Bart, of HolJcer 

 in Cartmell in Lancashire.' 1 



Order UNG ULA TA . Fam. BO VIDJE. 



OX. 

 Bos taurus, L. 



The deposits of Lakeland include remains of two species, or, 

 more properly perhaps, two varieties, of Ox. The smaller of 

 these is that known to antiquarians as Bos longifrons, the ' Celtic 

 Shorthorn' To this animal Professor Boyd Dawkins referred, 

 no doubt rightly, the jaw-bones and other bovine fragments 

 obtained by Beecham at Helsfell. Mr. R. Lydekker has most 

 kindly examined a single horn core of an Ox, obtained in the 

 foundations of the Carlisle market at a depth of twenty feet from 

 the surface. 2 He tells me that I am quite right in referring this 

 to Bos longifrons. Among the deposits of Roman origin recently 

 unearthed in the foundations of Tullie House, Carlisle, under 

 the superintendence of Chancellor Ferguson, F.S.A., I was 

 pleased to recognise a portion of the frontal bones of the same 

 animal, bearing the cores of the horns in a fairly perfect state 

 of preservation. Although remains of this ox have not ap- 

 parently been recorded hitherto from Lakeland, there can be 

 little doubt that it was the common British Ox, at one time 

 found everywhere. 



Much greater interest attaches to the remains of Bos primi- 

 genius, the extinct Auroch; and none the less because our 



1 Phil. Trans. , vol. xxxvii. p. 257- 



2 I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Leavers, the governor of H.M. Prison, 

 Carlisle, for this specimen. 



