found near New steady Roxburghshire. 127 



siderably in most particulars; the largest of these No. 1, 

 being probably a bull, as well from its larger size, and 

 more strongly-marked horn cores, as from the proportionally 

 broader and squarer forehead, which is believed to be cha- 

 racteristic of the male ; and the others being in all probability 

 cows. I would be inclined to account for their slight differ- 

 ences upon the supposition of these skulls being the remains 

 of cattle which had become domesticated at that early period 

 in our country's history, when the Eoman soldier was a 

 dweller in the south of Scotland ; and should they be con- 

 sidered as not absolutely identical with the Bos longifrons, 

 they seem apparently so closely allied, as to afford a strong 

 reason for believing it to be, at all events, the native source 

 from which they had been derived. I have made out a table 

 of their different dimensions, as compared with those given 

 by Professor Owen, and it will be seen how very closely they 

 correspond (vide Table). One of the skulls, No. IV., seems to 

 have been sawn through the middle, and, from the appearance 

 of some of the others, you might fancy the animals had been 

 killed by the heavy blow of an axe, or some such instrument, 

 striking them obliquely immediately behind the horns. On 

 examining these skulls, I have been struck by what appears 

 to me to be the large relative size of their prominent orbits, 

 as contrasted with those of the Bos primigenius, and even of 

 our domestic cattle. In the B. primigenius, indeed, the orbit 

 seems to be small in relation to the immense bulk of the 

 skull. And I may also notice the peculiar prominence in the 

 middle of their supra-occipital ridge, especially in the skulls 

 Nos. III. and IV. Since writing these notes, I have read a 

 very interesting paper by Professor Nilsson of Lund, in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, vol. ii. of Second 

 Series, " On the Extinct and Existing Bovine Animals of 

 Scandinavia," in which he gives a detailed account of the 

 characters of the Bos longifrons of Professor Owen, or Dwarf 

 Ox, a few of which I may enumerate here. He says : " As 

 far as we yet know, it is the smallest of the ox tribe that had 

 lived wild in our portion of the globe ; the whole length, 

 from the muzzle to the end of the rump bone, he supposes to 

 have been about 6 ft. 8 inches, and, from the slender make 



