X 
THE OX. 
HISTORY. 
in tlie wild state in the countries where these animals are domesticated : and we cannot hut believe also that the wild of the do¬ 
mestic Ox either yet exists, or did exist in a former age. 
Now, the concurrent testimony of many writers shows that an animal identical with the domestic races existed in the ancient 
forests of Europe. This animal was termed Urochs by the older Germans, a word which is derived from Ur, a root common to 
many languages, and signifying original or old, and ochs, an ox. The Greek and Roman writers employed the term Urns, either 
borrowed from the Teutonic, or derived from the same root, Ur, which entered into the composition of their own T uvgog and Taurus. 
From the same source are derived the Shur and Tur of the Hebrew and other languages of the East; and hence, too, the Thur of 
the Poles, the Tyr, Tyer, Stier, Steer, in the dialects of northern Europe. We find, too, terms derived from the designation of 
the bull applied to the names of countries, mountains, and forests ; as the Turan of Persia, the Turan of the Caucaus, the Turin 
of Italy, the Tours of France, the Thuringian forest, and many more. 
The Uri are described by Julius Caesar as existing in the Hercynian forest, as being little short of elephants in size, and 
as being of the kind, colour, and figure of the bull* Pliny refers to them as inhabitants of Scythia and Germany, along with 
the Bison, adverting at the same time to the vulgar error of confounding the Urus with the Bubalus, which, says he, was an animal 
like a Stag brought from Africa. SolinUS repeats the opinion of Pliny. “ In the tract of the Hercynian forest, and in all the 
northern regions, are likewise Uri, which the ignorant vulgar term Bubali.” But the great confusion which subsequently took 
place was in confounding the Urus with the Bison, although the distinction had been drawn by Pliny, Seneca, Pomponius, 
and other writers. More modern authors still more distinctly point out the diffeience between those animals. Thus Laurentils, 
in his commentaries on the affairs of his own time, writes : u In Lithuania there are Bisons, Uri, and likewise Elks. those aie in 
error who call the Bisons, Uri; for the Bisons differ from the Uri, which have the form of an Ox, in having manes, and long hairs 
about the neck, in having a beard hanging from the chin, and in smelling of musk.” In an ancient poem on a hunting match 
near Worms, we have a distinct account of the number of Bisons, Uri, and Elks, which were respectively slain; and various 
chroniclers refer to the hunting of the ancient Uri in the forests of Europe. Heberstein, De Rebus Muscov., and Martin 
Cromer, De Situ Polonise, writers of the sixteenth century, describe the distinction between the Bison or Zubr of the Poles, and 
the Thur of the same nation, and state that the Thur was only then to be found at Varsovia in Poland, where it was kept for 
curiosity. Anthony Schniebergen describes the Thur as differing from the domestic race only in size and colour. Yet, in 
the middle ages, Albertus Magnus, and other writers, fell into the error of confounding those animals; and several German 
writers applied the term Urochs or Auerochs, the undoubted designation of their own Urus , to the Bison; and modern naturalists, 
in opposition to the testimony of the older writers, are yet found to maintain the same error. 
In the first part of this work, it has been shown that the Urus inhabited, until a late period, the forests of the British Islands. 
Anthony Fitzstephen, it has been seen, who wrote in the latter period of the reign of Henry II., describes the Uii as abounding 
in the great forests round London : and Scottish writers and eye-witnesses describe them as existing in the great Sylva Caledonia 
until the sixteenth century. It has likewise been shown that the remnants of this race are yet preserved m various parks of 
English noblemen, exhibiting the characters and habits of the wild race. It has likewise been shown that these animals differ m 
no essential characters from the domestic races of the mountains of the country; that, by a mere change of colour, they become 
undistinguishable from them, and, by the effects of domestication, lose all the peculiar habits indicative of their wild condition.. 
Fossil skulls have been found in various parts of Europe resembling those of the Urus and the domestic race, and differing 
from them only in size. These bones indicate an animal greatly surpassing in magnitude any of the modern races of oxen. They 
are usually about one-third or more larger in linear size, indicating an animal nearly two and a half times the bulk of the oxen of 
the present time. Their remains are found in the same alluvial deposites as those of the Elephant, and other large species which 
formerly inhabited Europe, proving that they lived at the same era : they are found likewise in the same situations as the great 
extinct Irish Elk, and thus seem to have survived various species with which they were associated, and even perhaps to have sur¬ 
vived till within the historic era. 
A question which has been agitated by naturalists is, Whether these huge animals are the origin of the domestic races, and 
may not even have been the Uri described by CzesAR ? The question is one which bears less than is assumed upon the origin 
of the existing races. We can, by all the evidence which the question admits of, trace the existing races to the Uri, which, long 
posterior to the historical era, inhabited the forests of Germany, Gaul, Britain, and other countries. It is a question involving 
an entirely different series of considerations, whether these Uri were themselves descended from an anterior race, surpassing them 
in magnitude, and inhabiting the globe at the same time with other extinct species. While there is nothing that can directly 
* In Sylva Ilercynise nascuntur qui appellantur Uri. Hi sunt magnitudine paulo infra Elephantos, specie et colore etfiguia Tami. De Bello Galhco. 
