2 56 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
while their section is nearly circular. From the 
bones of the limbs, the Etruscan ox may be inferred 
to have been of slight and delicate build ; while it is 
further characterised by the presence of an additional 
thin vertical column on the inner side of the lower 
molar teeth. By Professor Rutimeyer this and the 
next species were believed to be more or less nearly 
related to the bantin : in the absence of horns in the 
cows these oxen are of a more primitive type than 
buffaloes, as it seems certain that in all groups of 
ruminants horns were originally present in the male 
sex alone. 
So far as can be determined from its imperfect 
remains, the Siwalik representative {B. falconeri) of 
the Etruscan ox differs from the European species 
by the more slender skull and more upright direction 
of the horn-cores of the bulls. A third species, 
B.fraseri, has been named on the evidence of a skull 
from the Pleistocene deposits of the Narbada valley. 
In treating of the living European bison in an 
earlier chapter it was mentioned that this species 
was represented by an extinct race {B. bonasus 
lenenis) in northern Siberia. This race was described 
in 1910 by Dr. Max Hilzheimer^ on the evidence of 
a skull, still retaining the horn-sheaths, from the 
frozen soil of the valley of the Wilvvi, a tributary of 
the Lena. This skull is of huge size; and the horns 
are stated to differ from those of the living bison by 
being whitish in the basal half, instead of being 
blackish grey throughout. They are also long and 
slender, with the sharp points inclining inwards. 
Another distinction is to be found in the marked 
convexity of the centre of the forehead, which rises 
^ Sitzber. Ges. naiuj'for, Freunde, Berlin, 19 10, p. 145. 
