CRANIA OR RUMINANTS FROM THE INDIAN TERTIARIES. 21—108 
separated by a wide interval : on the posterior surface the bone is flattened and has 
no distinct flexor groove ; the whole length of the bone is equal to four-and-a- 
half times the transverse diameter of the two trochlege ; its dimensions are as 
follows 
Length . ......... 11-16 
Transverse diameter of two trochlese ........ 2-60 
Circumference at middle of shaft 4-80 
This specimen would correspond in proportionate size with the metacarpal 
noticed above : in Bos primigenius the metatarsal is 1-3 inches larger than the meta- 
carpal ; and the former bone is very like this specimen in form and size ; it is slightly 
longer than that of the Indian species. 
The flat-horned variety of Bos namadicus, as I have before said, differs from 
type species of the genus Bos, and agrees with the genus Bibos. We have 
already noticed various other points of resemblance between the Nerbudda ox and 
the latter genus, and since there is now no wild Taurine ox Living in India, and as 
the genus Bibos must have lived almost immediately after the extinction of the 
Nerbudda species, and is at present unknown dmdng the period in which that species 
lived, it may, I think, be a fair inference that the one is the direct ancestor of the 
other ; or that, in any case, both have sprung from one common stock. If I am right 
in considering the next described species of flat-horned ox from the Siwaliks as the 
ancestor of Bos namadicus, we are enabled to trace the probable ancestry of the Gout 
and Gayal backwards to the Siwalik period, and to mark their gradual divergence 
from the true Taurine type. I hope that Zoologists and Geologists in India 
will give particular attention to collecting any remains of Mammals that may occur 
in the upper Pleistocene and early recent beds of India, in order that we may be 
enabled to trace the earlier species more directly up to the present species, and to 
discover intermediate forms such as I presume must have existed between Bos 
namadicus and Bibos gaurus. 
The Nerbudda ox, owing to the discovery of a palaeolithic implement by Mr. 
Hacket in the beds in which its remains occur, was at all events, during a certain portion 
of the period in which it existed, a contemporary of the early human inhabitants 
of India ; and the genus Bibos, if we adopt the view that it is descended directly 
from B. namadicus, must also have acquired its characteristic modifications of 
cranium within the same period. Whether man was instrumental in causing the 
final disappearance of the Nerbudda ox, or whether it was unable to compete against 
the modern oxen, or whether the disappearance of the sM forests from the Nerbudda 
valley, which Captain Forsyth in the “ Highlands of Central India ” considers as 
the cause of the disappearance of Bubalus palceindicus from that district, was 
fatal to the existence of Bos namadicus, we are at present unable to decide ; 
but I am inclined to think that the second of the three hypotheses is the more 
probable. 
