NAMES OF THE OX AND ITS ANCESTOR 3 
equivalent to oxen, in the narrower sense, and likewise 
in the modern beef. 
The second root-word is exemplified by the German 
ochs, the Danish oxe, and the Saxon and modern 
English ox. The addition of the prefix ur, aur, or auer 
gives us urox^ aurochs^ or auei'ocJis^ the name of the 
ancient extinct wild ox, or wild bull, of Europe. 
According to Professor W. Boyd Dawkins,^ the word 
urox, or aurochs, is derived from the " Sanskrit root 
ur^ aui\ or 07'^ that signifies a forest or stony place. 
The root can be traced through many languages, and 
still survives in the Greek oros (a mountain), the 
Norwegian ore, the Islandic itrd (the stony desert sur- 
rounding the base of the mountains), and is preserved 
without change in the Old German ur (a forest) and in 
the Biblical 'Ur of the Chaldees.' It appears also 
in the Ural Mountains, and likewise in the canton of 
Uri, the crest of which is an ox-head." 
Professor Dawkins regards the word ttrox, urochs, 
aurochs, or auerochs as equivalent to wild ox or forest 
ox. A precisely analogous word occurs in the shape of 
auerhuhn or urhuhn, the German name of the caper- 
caillie, which according to the above should be regarded 
as equivalent to wild cock, or forest cock, although in 
some German dictionaries it is translated mountain 
cock, as is auerochs by mountain ox or mountain buffalo. 
In Old German, however, the wild bull is generally, 
if not invariably, designated simply as ur (plural ure^, 
uwer, or auer. Thus in the " Niebelungenlied," the 
great twelfth-century epic, we find the following lines : — 
" Dar nach schluch er schiere, einen Wisent und einen Elch, 
Starcher Ure vier, und einen grimmen Schelch," 
which have been translated as follows : — 
' Quart. Joiirn. Geol. Soc, London, 1866, vol. xxii. p. 391. 
