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and rhinoceroses which are dug up in the North of Europe, in France, 
Italy, and England. 
On these opinions of M. Faujas, M. Cuvier observes, that it is not 
necessary to go so far as the Indies to find the living species to which 
these horns belong. The truth is, he says, that the first of these skulls 
is that of an auroch, with no difference which can reasonably be con- 
sidered as specific ; and the second belongs, he conceives, simply to 
the species of our domestic ox, of which it has all the characters. 
The magnitude of them, compared with the common skeletons, and 
the direction of the horns, occasion the illusion ; but these, he adds, 
are circumstances which naturalists know are not constant characters, 
and not proper to be employed for the distinction of species. 
To assist you in making the necessary distinctions, I shall here 
introduce to you the osteologic characters of the skulls of the aurochs 
and the ox, as given by M. Cuvier himself*. “ The forehead of the 
ox is flat, and even a little concave ; that of the auroch, although a 
little less so than in the ox, is rather tumid. In the ox, the forehead 
has a square form, being nearly as high as it is wide, taking its base 
between the orbits ; in the auroch , measuring it in the same way, it 
is much wider than it is high, the width being to the height as three 
to two. The horns, in the ox, are attached to the extremities of the 
projecting line at the top of the head, which separates the occiput 
from the forehead ; in the auroch, this line is two inches backwarder 
than the roots of the horns. In the ox, the plane of the occiput makes 
an acute angle with the forehead ; in the auroch, this angle is obtuse. 
Lastly, the plane of the occiput, which is quadrangular in the ox, 
forms a semicircle in the auroch .” The characters which M. Cuvier 
here assigns to the ox are common to all its known varieties. 
To these distinctive characters, taken from the skull, may be added 
these, which serve to determine the propriety of regarding the auroch 
* Menagerie du Mus. d’Hist. Nat. art. du Zebu. 
