liv PROLEGOMENA 



the assurance that such bovine fragments have been found there 

 on several occasions. The head sent to Howgill Castle hangs in 

 the hall of the house to this day. The last time that I saw it, 

 Mr. Thorpe had most kindly accompanied me, for the express 

 purpose of obtaining some photographs of this head. He was 

 much impressed by the fine sweep which the horns of this old 

 bull possess. The lower jaws are unfortunately missing. We 

 should probably refer to the Auroch the skulls of two other 

 Oxen, discovered within the limits of the English Solway. ' In 

 excavating on Burgh marsh/ says a local print, ' at a depth of 

 seventeen feet from the surface, a skull, supposed to belong to 

 an animal of the uri species (now extinct) was turned up. The 

 horns measure 6 feet from tip to tip, and are curved so that the 

 points come within a few feet of each other, a space of 2 feet 

 being the extreme distance between them in the inside. They 

 measure 16 inches in circumference at the root. Some Buck 

 [1 Bed Deer] horns were also found at the same place.' 1 



The catalogue of the sale of the Crosthwaite Museum, dis- 

 persed by the hammer at Keswick, April 7th, 1870, mentions 

 a similar skull to the last mentioned, the two having been 

 obtained within a very few miles of one another. 'Lot 84, 

 Skull and other remains of Wild Ox, dug out of a peat-moss 

 at a depth of four feet, at Broadmire Moss, in Thrustonfield, 

 near Carlisle. One of the ribs had been broken, and had united 

 again.' 2 



During the years 1883 and 1884, while the North British 

 Bailway Company was engaged in excavations connected with 

 the formation of a new dock and a new gas-holding tank at 

 Silloth, remains of Bos primigenius were discovered. Sir William 

 Turner obtained these remains for the Museum of Science and 

 Art at Edinburgh. He has given an interesting account of 

 these bovine remains, although he was under a slight misappre- 

 hension when he wrote that the ' right lower jaw of the Bos 

 primigenius' found on this occasion was apparently 'the only 

 specimen of the lower jaw of this animal which had been found 

 in Britain.' 1 The fact of its rarity induced Sir William Turner 



1 Carlisle Patriot, December 21, 1850. 



2 Catalogue of Crosthwaite Museum, p. 19. 



