475 



attention. So likewise with the Bos frontosus. Its remains had been 

 found in various parts of Europe, ex necessitate rei, and had been sup- 

 posed to be those of a modern ox, and therefore neglected altogether, 

 even as fossil human bones had doubtless, often and often, been similarly 

 neglected. But in Bos longifrons, and probably in Bos frontosus, we 

 find a preponderance of females. "Why is this ? Because the remains in 

 bogs represented the herd as it existed — one bull at the head of a train of 

 cows, as in wild or semi- wild bovine animals which exist at the present 

 day ; and because the bulls fight amongst each other and slay each other, 

 and the animals which thus perish on the surface of the ground resolve 

 and dissipate into their constituent proximate elements, instead of being 

 imbedded and preserved in the peat of a morass. 



Dr. Blyth next called the attention of the meeting to a series of 

 skulls and fragments of skulls, which he considered to illustrate two races 

 of domestic sheep, not very ancient, in his opinion, as compared with 

 the remains of Bos primigenius {verus), or of Megaceros Hihernicus, in 

 Western Europe. One series was of the polycerate race, still existent 

 in Iceland, into which northern island it had probably been introduced 

 from Ireland many centuries ago, although now utterly extinct (so far 

 as he could learn) in Ireland. The other race would seem to be not 

 very different, if at all so, from the old Scottish Highland race of sheep 

 with which we are sufficiently familiar. He believed that either of those 

 races might claim about the same antiquity with specimens of the Bos 

 frontosus and of the Bos longifrons, but not of the Bos primigenius ; that of 

 Sus and of Equus, also, in Ireland ; being much older than the oldest 

 Capra that he had yet seen the remains of in this island. He drew the 

 attention of the assembly to the most ancient-looking Irish Capra skull 

 that had been brought to his notice ; but this, he could perceive at a 

 glance, was comparatively quite modern, and was that of the tame 

 "Welsh goat of the present day.* Its horn -cores had the ibicine arched 

 curvature backwards, analogous to that of the wild Capra mgagrus and 

 of other species, not the twist or spire of the .C. megaceros of Kashmir, 

 a link to which, from the other ibicine goats, was supplied by the Capra 

 pyrenaica of Schinz, a fine stuflPed specimen of which is in the Museum 

 of the Royal Dublin Society, and another in the British Museum ; and 

 the species is most interesting as explaining the immediate afliuities of 

 the C. megaceros. The diff'erent animal remains from the Irish bogs had 

 been found at various depths beneath the surface, and had been indis- 

 criminately collected and promiscuously tumbled into the same heap by 

 the finders of them ; but they had not been contemxporaneously depo- 

 sited. 



Dr. Blyth lastly exhibited to the meeting a very extraordinary 

 frontlet and pair of horns, which, as he more than suspected, were not 

 ancient Irish at all, but were obviously quite recent, and probably Ti- 



* The specimen is figured in vol. vii., p- 206, f. 8 ; the Polycerate sheep in fs. 9 and 

 11 ; and the other race of sheep in fs. 7 and 10. 



