6418 



Notice of the various 



various writers ; FitzStephen, for example, notices the Uri Sylvestres, 

 which, in his time, that is about 1150, infested the great forests round 

 London. In the Nineveh representations the hunting of the wild 

 bull is often depicted, and would appear to have been a favourite 

 pastime of the ancient monarchs ; and the animal would seem to have 

 been a humpless taurine of the present group, but nothing whatever is 

 known of it beyond what the Nineveh figures supply. " Wild cattle 19 

 are often noticed by travellers in North Africa ; but the Bubalis (a 

 species of" Harte-beest "*) is generally intended, and sometimes even 

 the Leucoryx or white oryx ; while the gnoos are the " wilde beests " 

 (i.e. wild cattle) of the Dutch colonists of South Africa, who again call 

 the hippopotamus the " sea cow," a name elsewhere applied to the 

 Manati. The wild cattle of Madagascar we know nothing about, 

 except that they are stated to be humpless, and longer in the legs than 

 European cattle ; f and the fine South-African domestic Caffre cattle 

 are of the present group of taurines, though not introduced by Euro- 

 peans ; a fact all the more remarkable, as we know only of humped 

 domestic races in all middle Africa and in Madagascar ; but we have 

 seen part of a fossil skull, with the particular flexure of horn, from the 

 neighbourhood of the Gariep or Orange River. % The horns of the 

 Caffre cattle extend out excessively, almost in a line with each other, 



in the flank, but gaining its feet it galloped off, followed by the infuriated animal, so 

 affording its rider an opportunity of effecting his escape. I believe that the Dukes of 

 Hamilton are bound by an old charter to preserve the breed, and great attention is now 

 being paid to prevent the race degenerating." — Field. 



* We have seen what appear to be two distinct species of Bubalis from North 

 Africa, one as big as the South African Caaina or " Harte-beest," with black feet ; the 

 other considerably smaller, with feet coloured like the body. A third from Tunis is 

 mentioned by Dr. J. E. Gray, as being probably distinct, with a dark brown streak 

 on the outer side of the front of the fore legs, as in the Cape " Harte-beest." Some 

 notice of the herds of Bubalis will be found in Barth's recent 'Travels.' 



f Flacourt: we were wrong in terming this, the boury, which name refers, 

 according to this author, to a large race of domestic humped cattle common in 

 the island. " Horned cattle are numerous, both tame and wild: many of the latter 

 resemble, in shape and size, the cattle of Europe." — Ellis's History of Madagascar. 



J Perhaps of the same species as the enormous fossil noticed in the ' Proceedings 

 of the Geological Society' for 1840, p. 152: — "Cores and portions of an ox in the 

 alluvial banks of the Moddea, one of the tributaries of the Gariep or Orange River, 

 and forty feet below the surface of the ground. The cores, with the breadth of fore- 

 head, measured 11 feet 7 inches, but it is calculated that 5 inches had been broken off 

 at the end of each tip, and circumference of piths at base was 18 inches. The orbits 

 wcje situate immediately under the base of the horns." The only wild bovine at 

 present existing in South Africa is the Cape buffalo. 



