204 
27th report, bureau of animal industry. 
ill England and described by Owen. It is probably identical with 
the species known as the marsh cow, whose remains have been found 
in the Swiss lake dwellings, and described by Eiitimej^er as Bos 
hrachyceros. This latter name must be abandoned; Gray in 1837 had 
also applied it to a species of west African buffalo. Compared with 
primigenius^ longifrons is much smaller and has a shorter face but 
a longer and broader forehead. The horns are shorter, and there 
is a ridge in the center of the poll. It is found with early remains 
of man's culture in the marshes of Mecklenburg and Harz. in the 
lake dwellings of the Stone period at Moosedorf , Wangen, Biel, and 
Wauwyl. It has also been dug from trenches near Bologna, Italy, 
and was the most important domesticated animal of the Stone age 
from the North Sea to Ital}^ But nowhere has it been found wild 
with certainty. It is represented to-day by breeds in the Alps, in 
northern Africa, and in Great Britain. 
Owen believed Bos longifrons to have existed in Pleistocene times, 
but recent discoveries point to a later origin (Dawkins, 1866). It 
lived in England during the Roman occupation and is the ancestor 
of the Welsh and Highland breeds, as the Celts retreated to the 
mountains with their cattle on the Saxori invasion. In France it is 
found in the Mousterian period (Mortillet), and was the only bovine 
species about Lyons during the Gallo-Roman epoch (Cornevin, 1885). 
As to the origin of Bos longifrons^ Riitimeyer, Wilckens, Keller, 
and Hughes believe it to be a species distinct from primigenhis. 
The earliest traces in Europe and the most typical forms of longi- 
frons are found on the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 
the Alj)ine region, and the Atlantic coast of Avestern Europe. Breeds 
of cattle in Africa and Switzerland, as well as the zebu of Asia and 
Africa, possess strong characteristics of this species. Hence it is 
argued that longifrons must have come originally from some Asiatic 
species, probably Bos sondaicus. 
Dawkins, Xehring, Werner, and others deny any other than a 
European origin of longifrons. They say that the form of primi- 
genius was ver}^ variable and that a changing environment and the 
dwarfing by domestication resulted in the form now known as 
longifrons. Dawkins (1866) says: 
A walk into a cattle market will convince the most skeptical of observers that 
the common ox presents also every variation possible in the shape and direction 
of the horns. In fine, a very careful comparison of the skulls of B. urns in 
Britain with those of various varieties of B. tanriti^, or the common ox, compels 
me to believe that there is no difference of specific value between them, those 
points of difference noticed by Profs. Riitimeyer and Nilsson proving to be 
peculiar to the individual and not to the species, and therefore useless for clas- 
sificatory purposes. 
Urus could be distinguished from any contemporary taurus by his 
size, and from the smaller bison by the double curvature of his horns, 
