1867.] Mr. W. B. Dawkins on Ovibos mosckatus. 



517 



common between it and JBubalus Caffir, The encroachment of horn- 

 cores or parietals differentiate it from the sheep. 



The animal ranges at the present day from Fort Churchill, lat. 60°, 

 northwards as far as the arctic sea. and eastwards as far as Cape 

 Bathurst, lat. 71°, living for the most part on the "barren grounds," 

 and never penetrating far into the woods. In geological times, 

 however, it had a far greater range eastwards and southwards. In 

 the pleistocene river-gravels lying on the solid ice in Eschscholtz Bay, 

 in Eussian America, it is found associated with the elk, reindeer, 

 bison, horse, and mammoth. Traces of the animal ranging further 

 to the east are afforded by the skull found on the banks of the Tena, 

 in lat. 70°, long. 135°. Dr. Pallas's discovery of two skulls on the 

 banks of the Obi brings the animal still closer to the borders of 

 Europe. All three skulls were found in the Tundas," or treeless 

 " barren grounds " of Siberia, in the same series of gravels which afford 

 such vast stores of fossil ivory. In G-ermany it has been found in three 

 localities ; and in France; in the valley of the Oise, it is associated with 

 flint implements of the St. Acheul type, and with the mammoth and 

 Elephas antiquus. It has also been found in the reindeer caves of Peri- 

 gord, under circumstances that prove beyond doubt that the animal 

 was eaten by the reindeer folk. In England it has been found in three 

 gravel-beds of late pleistocene age, near Maidenhead, at Ereshford near 

 Bath, and at G-reenstreet-green near Bromley. In 1866 the author dug 

 it out of the lower brickearth of Crayford in Kent, where it was as- 

 sociated with Mliinoceros JfegarJiinus, JR. leptorJiinics (Owen), and 

 JElephas ardiquus. The skull in this latter case belonged to a re- 

 markably fine old male. Thus its present limited range in space con- 

 trasts most strongly with its wide range in pleistocene times through 

 North Siberia and central Europe, north of a line passing through the 

 Alps and Pyrenees. Its association with animals of a temperate or 

 else southern zone is to be accounted for by its having been driven 

 from its usual haunts by an unusually severe winter. The rarity of its 

 remains proves that it was not so abundant as those animals which are 

 associated vath it in France, Germany, and Britain. 



Professor Leidy figures and describes two fossil skulls most closely 

 allied to Ovihos moscJiatus, from Arkansas and Ohio, under the name of 

 Bootherum cavifrons and B. hombifrons ; they are, hov\^ever, most probably 

 the male and female of the same species. They differ from Ovihos mos- 

 cJiatus only in the direction of their horn-cores, and in their bases meetiug 

 and becoming fused on the coronal surface of the male skull. The 

 horn-cores are supported both by the frontals and parietals. In other 

 respects they present the same ovine affinities as Ovihos, and certainly 

 belong to the same genus. 



