found near New stead, Roxburghshire. 125 



to a much later period ; but on this difficult subject it is no 

 easy matter to decide. 



Of the various remains of the lower animals which were 

 collected, the first I shall notice has been well called " the 

 noble associate of man," — I refer to the Horse, Equus Cabal- 

 lus, Linn., to which I consider this back part of a mutilated 

 skull to have belonged, and which seems to have been an in- 

 dividual of rather a small size. The next is the Common 

 Hog, Sus scrofa, Linn., of which a lower jaw was preserved. 

 It is easily distinguished by its peculiar form, the posterior 

 grinders being oblong, with tuberculated crowns, and the in- 

 cisors sloping forwards. The third animal which I have to 

 notice, is represented merely by a portion of a round antler, 

 apparently of the Common Stag or Red Deer, Cervus ela- 

 phus, Linn. It seems to be a part of the first or brow antler ; 

 and I was informed, that tolerably perfect antlers, said to 

 be those of the red deer, had also been found ; but these I 

 was unable to get for examination. 



The other remains consisted of skulls, and apparently other 

 bones of short-horned oxen, which I shall attempt more parti- 

 cularly to describe. I need hardly allude to the well known fact, 

 of the previous existence in Britain of two species of enormous 

 wild oxen ; the one the shaggy Bison, the other the large 

 horned and mighty Urus (Bos primigenius, Bojan.) ; an animal, 

 according to Caesar, almost equalling the elephant in bulk; but, 

 in addition to these, there were also short-horned cattle of a 

 very inferior size, which have been proved to have existed in 

 Britain from the period of the newer pliocene formation, their 

 remains being found in drifts and fresh-water deposits, along 

 with those of the mammoth and the rhinoceros, and in the 

 caves of the same period, the prey, it may have been, of 

 tigers, bears, and hyaenas ; as well as through the depo- 

 sits of the alluvium ; down to their existence in the bogs, 

 and among the traces of men in the latest of all the 

 formations ; being spared apparently, for man's sake, while 

 their dread contemporaries of earlier times had passed from 

 the face of the earth. After this, however, they also seem 

 to disappear as a distinct species ; still existing, it may 

 be, in some of the many varieties of our present domes- 



