found near New stead, Roxburghshire. 129 



doubtedly existed in our country at a very remote period, 

 naturally suggests some queries as to the Origin of our 

 ordinary Domestic Cattle, which is a question of consider- 

 able interest as well as difficulty, but into which I do not 

 intend to enter farther than to bring forward a few gleanings 

 and remarks bearing upon this interesting subject. Profes- 

 sor Nilsson, in the valuable paper already alluded to, after 

 describing what he considers to have been an additional 

 species of extinct and fossil ox, which, according to him, 

 had existed in this country as well as in Sweden, which he 

 calls the Bos frontosus, and to which, in passing, I must 

 allude. It is distinguished, he says, by the ridge of the occi- 

 put rising high in the centre, convex ; the horns, which rest 

 on longer pedicles than among any known species of ox, are 

 short, and directed outwards and backwards, and then bend 

 forwards. The size of the skulls denote an animal which, 

 although much less than the B. primigenius, is yet consider- 

 ably larger than the B. longifrons. It belongs, he says, to 

 the country's oldest post-pliocene period. And with regard 

 to the question of the origin of our present cattle, the Pro- 

 fessor considers that a race of our domestic cattle have 

 probably been derived from each of the three species he de- 

 scribes of the sub-genus Bos with the flat forehead ; the B. 

 primigenius, B. frontosus, and B. longifrons ; none of them, 

 according to the general opinion of naturalists, being derived 

 from the Bison or Aurochs, which is quite different in its 

 characters, and never pairs with the domestic cow. Other 

 naturalists, however, consider the Bos primigenius as the 

 origin from which our domestic cattle are derived. I entirely 

 concur with the opinion of Professor Owen, in considering it 

 highly improbable, in fact almost impossible, that the enor- 

 mous and savage Uri, of which Csesar says, "great is their 

 strength and great their speed, and they spare neither man 

 nor beast which they catch sight of ; and that the man who 

 killed the greatest number of them, even by the pitfali, 

 brings the horns as an evidence of his prowess, and is highly 

 applauded by his countrymen ; and so savage is their nature, 

 that, though taken never so young, they cannot be tamed," — 

 (lib. vi., 27, 28.) To suppose beasts like these, not only tamed, 



VOL. LIV. NO. CVII. — JANUARY 1853. L 



