JVotices of Big-hone Lick, 173 



50° and 40° N. lat.* From an account recently published by 

 Dr. Wagner, it appears that the Brazilian megalonyx was like 

 many of the remains hitherto discovered in North America, also 

 found in a cave. 



Bos BoMBiFRONS. Harlan. 



This extinct species, peculiar, so far as is yet knov^n, to this 

 country, was first distinguished, and its characters pointed out, by 

 the late Dr. Wistar of Philadelphia,! in a paper read to the 

 American Philosophical Society, accompanied with a good 

 figure, in 1817 or 1818. 



Cuvier, as late as the third edition of his great work, makes no 

 mention of it, although, unlike the three fossil species enumerated 

 by him, it has the advantage of being so well distinguished from 

 all the living species as to be in no danger of being confounded 

 with any of them. Dr. Harlan first assigned it a place in the 

 system under the expressive name of Bos homhifrons.\ 



The head described by Wistar was obtained at Big-bone Lick 

 by governor Clark, and is preserved in the Philosophical Society's 

 Cabinet. 



In the Finnell collection, 1 found a second head of this species, 

 much in the same state as that figured by Dr. Wistar, or if any 

 thing, rather less complete. Placed by the side of an analogous 

 specimen of the buffalo, in the same collection, the differences 

 were strikingly obvious. 



These two heads are the only remains that have been iden- 

 tified as belonging to this species. Dr. Harlan, however, men- 

 tions fossil teeth from Big-bone Lick that he thinks most pro- 

 bably belonged to the same. 



Bos Pallasii. Dekay. 



This species is now first introduced among those whose remains 

 occur at Big-bone Lick. During my stay there in 1828, a mu- 

 tilated skull, with part of the core of one horn attached, was 

 found in one of the streams near the great spring, where it had 

 been used as a stepping stone, and brought to me. It is now de- 

 posited in the Lyceum of Natural History. 



A skull similar to this, which was thrown up by an earthquake 

 near New Madrid on the Mississippi, in the year 1812, forms the 



* Vid. Ann. Phil, for June 1831, p. 418. 



t Vid. Amer. Phil. Trans, vol. 1. new series, p. 375. ' 



t Fauna Amer. p. 271. 



