561 
Hotes, Communications, anb 
IReviews. 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE BRITISH BREEDS 
OF CATTLE. 
[During the Meeting of the Society at Cambridge this year Professor 
McKenny Hughes, F.R.S., exhibited at the Woodwardian Museum a 
series of skulls and horn-cores arranged to illustrate the origin of 
the dominant breeds of cattle during successive periods of English 
history, and he has very kindly furnished for publication the 
following note on the collection. — Ed.] 
In the inferences drawn as to the evolution of the British breeds 
of oxen, chief importance is attached to the results of excavations. 
If certain forms of skull and skeleton have been found associated 
with other fossils, with coins, or with pottery of known age, such 
positive evidence may be safely relied upon, provided the excavations 
have been watched by careful and competent observers. The 
negative evidence also is of increasing value as observations are 
repeated and extended, until it may often be safely urged that, as 
certain forms of horn and skull have never been, they are not likely 
ever to be found associated, with remains of a certain age in this 
country. 
The skull of a Bison, which had been found in the river gravels 
a few miles from Cambridge, was placed first in the collection 
made at the Woodwardian Museum on the occasion of the Society’s 
recent visit. This animal, like the American bison, which was 
commonly, but improperly, called a buffalo, was fine-boned in the 
limb, but ponderous in the head and in the muscular and bony 
arrangements for supporting it. Its skull was easily distinguished 
by the protuberant ridge between the horns, the large angle which 
the forehead makes with the occipital region, and the very forward 
position of the base of the horn-cores. This species lasted through 
the time when man used rough unpolished stone implements, but has 
not been found in Britain with the remains of the men of the 
polished stone age. 
Next in order came the Urns, or Bos primigenius, which is 
first found with the bison in the ancient river terraces. It lived 
od, after the bison had become extinct, throughout the age of 
Neolithic man, who certainly hunted it. This is proved by a very 
interesting skull which was found in the Fen north of Cambridge, 
