obtained in the southern counties of Scotland. Dr J. A. Smith informs me that about forty years ago many crania were discovered in these counties by the diggers for marl.

Mr Parkinson also, in his " Organic Remains,"* states that he has in his possession specimens of Bovine Fossils obtained in Dumfriesshire. Professor Owen is of opinion that the Bos primigenius "maintained its ground longest in Scotland before its final extinction." This opinion is founded on the very recent character of the osseous substance.

It is probable that the femur, scapula, humerus, rib, and vertebra, were found in the same deposit, and along with the least perfect of the above-described crania; for they present in their deep brown colour corresponding appearances externally. If such is the case, we shall be justified in regarding them as bones belonging to the Bos primigenius. On contrasting them with the corresponding bones of the modern Bos inhabiting this country, I find that they present the same anatomical characters, only on a much larger scale, on account of their greater size, This is seen especially in the spines, trochanters, tuberosities, and other ridges and prominences for the attachment of muscles and ligaments, which are all developed in an exaggerated form, and indicate most prominently what the great muscular development of the animal must have been. These bones are all in an admirable state of preservation, the osseous characters being distinctly marked, and the various articular surfaces smooth, and presenting their divisions into distinct facets as clearly as in the recent bones. As a means of arriving at a proper estimate of the great size of these bones when contrasted with those of the common ox, I subjoin certain comparative measurements which I have made, premising that the bones of the common ox which I have taken, although obtained from a young specimen in which the epiphyses are only partially united to the shafts by ossification, have yet, from their size, evidently belonged to an animal of a large breed. The fossil bones, on the other hand, have all belonged to an adult animal, for the epiphyses are completely ossified to the shafts.

* Vol. iii.

Right Humerus.

9

7

41

31

4

Circumference of middle of shaft,

Breadth across condyles,

Greatest diameter of articular surface of head, 5

The rib is most probably the seventh on the right side. Its length is 28 inches, and its greatest breadth 2 inches. The vertebra is the second cervical or axis.

The bulky nature of the spine and other processes of this vertebra point to the great size of the head of the animal to which it belonged, and indicate a corresponding development of the muscles and ligamentous structures which must have been connected to it.

From some further measurements that I have made, I have endeavoured to arrive at some estimate of the size of the entire skeleton of this great extinct Bos; this has been done by comparing the length of certain of the bones of the common ox with the height of that animal's skeleton, and then contrasting them with corresponding bones of the fossil animal now before us; this comparison has led me to the conclusion, that the skeleton of the extinct animal must have stood nearly six feet in height at the shoulder. If we now imagine this skeleton clothed with a thick coating of powerful muscles and hairy integument, having appended to the anterior extremity

of the spine an enormous head with a pair of large and widely curving horns, we may form some idea of the formidable appearance that this extinct animal must have presented when, in the full vigour of its existence, it roamed unfettered through its native forests.

The other fossil remains, of which I have specimens, were found at different periods in the north-western division of the county of Lancaster. They were not obtained in the same locality, but at places several miles apart from each other; some being found in the district of Pilling, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mouth of the river Wyre, others close to the town of Preston. From information with which I have been supplied, I think it probable that the stratum in which they were imbedded was of the same nature, consisting of sand and gravel, lying immediately beneath the peat.

The specimens from Pilling consist of a large vertebra and a tooth. They were transmitted to me by the Rev. J. D. Banister, the incumbent of that district, a gentleman who, for a long series of years, has paid great attention to the natural history of the locality, and who carefully preserves any object of interest which may fall in his path. I have been favoured by Mr Banister with the following particulars of the deposit in which they were found:-" Pilling Moss is an extensive post-tertiary fresh-water deposit, situated between the mouths of the rivers Wyre and Cocker. It forms the present coastline between these rivers, and is bounded on the land side by an ancient sea-beach, distant, on an average, two miles from the present sea-beach. The surface consists for the most part of fine corn land, and beneath this the following layers may be observed :—

"1st, Grey bog moss, generally the growth of Sphagnum. "2d, A darker and more solid bog, towards the bottom of which there is much wood.

"3d, Carre, or original soil, in which are the roots of the trees of the ancient forest. In this numerous ancient implements have been found 2 feet deep.

"4th, Clay, varying in thickness from two to six feet.

"5th, Blue silt, or finely comminuted sand.

"It is in the last of these deposits that the bone and tooth

were found. In different parts of the same layer numerous bones, horns, and teeth of the red deer have at various times been discovered."

The vertebra is the fifth cervical, and in its shapes and general anatomical characters, especially the concavo-convex nature of the articular surfaces of the centrum, and the foramina at the roots of the transverse processes, bears a closer resemblance to the cervical vertebræ of the larger members of the order Ruminantia than to those of any other mammalian order.

Thinking, in the first instance, that it might belong to the Megaceros hibernicus, I made a close comparison between it and the fifth cervical vertebra of the skeleton of that animal preserved in the Natural History Museum of the University of Edinburgh. It differs, however, in several of its measurements, more especially in the antero-posterior diameter, in which it is considerably shorter. On the whole, it may be said to possess a much more elegant shape than the vertebræ of the Megaceros. In its characters it corresponds much more closely to the fifth cervical vertebra of a bovine animal; and, from its size, it has probably belonged either to the Bos primigenius, or to the great fossil Aurochs, Bison priscus. In confirmation of this opinion, I have the high authority of Professor Owen, to whom I presented a cast of the vertebra some months ago. It may be interesting to contrast for a moment this vertebra with a human cervical vertebra, when the difference between the relative size of the neural canals and the bony processes is at once apparent, the neural canal of the fossil bone being very little larger than the corresponding canal in the human vertebra, whilst the processes of the former are many times larger than those of the latter. The circumference of the fossil, measuring it around the tips of the processes, is 26 inches. From the almost perfect state of the bone, it must have reposed quietly in the position in which it was found, and have been subjected there to very slight external influences.

The tooth found in the same stratum, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the vertebra, is the last pre-molar of the right side of the upper jaw of a bovine animal, probably the Bos primigenius. It has three fangs. The inner surface of

the crown is convex, the outer concave and sinuous, the extremities projecting into considerable points. A crescentic enamel island lies in the centre of the tooth, the concavity of which is turned towards the sinuous outer surface of the crown, the extremities of the crescent project to the pointed extremities of the outer surface. At the first glance, it might appear as if this tooth were too small for the cranium of so large an animal as the great extinct Bos; but it was found, on trial, exactly to fill the empty socket of the corresponding tooth in the large cranium of this species in the University Museum, already described. On referring to the cranium which belonged to Dr Fleming, I found the corresponding pre-molar tooth still in its socket, and presenting exactly the same anatomical characters.

The bones which I have obtained from the neighbourhood of the town of Preston were found in the year 1836, by the workmen employed in digging the foundations for the piers of the railway bridge over the River Ribble. They were preserved by Mr Joseph Thornber, and by him presented to S. B. Worthington, Esq., the engineer to the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, who deposited them in the Museum of the Lancaster Mechanics' Institution.

Mr Thornber, in a note which he has furnished me with, states that the bones were found in a stratum of gravel and sand beneath the peat. This stratum rested on a bed of new red sandstone. One of these bones is an undoubted relic of the Bos primigenius. It was found 26 feet 10 inches below the surface. It consists of the left frontal bone, with the horn-core still attached to it, and springing from the left extremity of the great posterior ridge. The bone has evidently belonged to a young animal, for it has separated from the adjoining bones along the lines of the different sutures, so that it could not have been permanently connected to them by ossification. Its dimensions, also, are much less than those of the corresponding bone in the adult crania, already described, its length being only nine inches, and the circumference of the root of the horn-core nine inches. The core is much less tuberculated, and not so strongly grooved as in the adult specimen. The other bones consist of a portion of the