WILD OX AND ITS EXTERMINATION 65 
flint-implements on the ribs, is described and figured 
by Messrs. N. Hartz and H. Winge.^ 
When the wild ox disappeared from Britain is 
unknown ; but the skulls and bones from the 
English fens and the Scottish peat-bogs indicate an 
animal little, if at all, superior in size to the Polish 
aurochs. When, however, a lower geological horizon 
is reached, namely, that of the brick-earth at Ilford 
in Essex, skulls and bones of much larger size are 
obtained, which must have belonged to really 
gigantic animals, although from the more forward 
direction of their horn-cores their span is less than 
in smaller specimens from the peat-bogs and fens. 
In a skull of the latter type from Atholl, preserved 
in the British Museum, the bony horn-cores have a 
span of 42 inches from tip to tip, and when these 
were covered with the horny sheaths the span was 
probably at least as much as 50 inches. 
If, as is probable, the huge skulls from Ilford — 
of which a magnificent series, collected by the late 
Sir Antonio Brady, is exhibited in the Natural 
History branch of the British Museum — are entitled 
to rank as a distinct race, it should bear the name 
of B. taimis giganteus. 
Skulls and other bones of the aurochs have been 
obtained, as already mentioned, from England and 
Scotland, but are apparently unknown in Ireland. 
On the Continent they occur in Denmark, France, 
Switzerland, Italy, Scandinavia, Germany, and 
Austria ; while it may be taken as certain that the 
species roamed over Russia, although its exact 
eastern and northern limits are not ascertained. 
^ Aarboger for Norish Oldkyndiged og Historic^ Copenhagen, 1 906, 
P- 233. 
5 
