BOVEY BEDS, in geology, a deposit of sands, clays and lignite, 200-300 ft. thick, which lies in a basin extending from Bovey Tracey to Newton Abbot in Devonshire, England. The deposit is evidently the result of the degradation of the neighbouring Dartmoor granite; and it was no doubt laid down in a lake. O. Heer, who examined the numerous plant remains from these beds, concluded that they belonged to the same geological horizon as the Molasse or Oligocene of Switzerland. Starkie Gardiner, however, who subsequently examined the flora, showed that it bore a close resemblance to that of the Bournemouth Beds or Lower Bagshot; in this view he is supported by C. Reid. Large excavations have been made for the extraction of the clays, which are very valuable for pottery and similar purposes. The lignite or “Bovey Coal” has at times been burned in the local kilns, and in the engines and workmen’s cottages, but it is not economical.
See S. Gardiner, Q. J. G. S. London, xxxv., 1879; W. Pengelly and O. Heer, Phil. Trans., 1862; C. Reid, Q. J. G. S. lii., 1896, p. 490, and loc. cit. liv., 1898, p. 234. An interesting general account is given by A.W. Clayden, The History of Devonshire Scenery (London, 1906), pp. 159-168.
BOVIANUM, the name of two ancient Italian towns, (1) Undecimanorum [Boiano], the chief city of the Pentri Samnites, 9 m. N.W. of Saepinum and 18 m. S.E. of Aesernia, on the important road from Beneventum to Corfinium, which connected the Via Appia and the Via Valeria. The original city occupied the height (Civita) above the modern town, where remains of Cyclopean walls still exist, while the Roman town (probably founded after the Social War, in which Bovianum was the seat of the Samnite assembly) lay in the plain. It acquired the name Undecimanorum when Vespasian settled the veterans of the Legio XI. Claudia there. Its remains have been covered by over 30 ft. of earth washed down from the mountains. Comparatively few inscriptions have been discovered. (2) Vetus (near Pietrabbondante, 5 m. S. of Agnone and 19 m. N.W. of Campobasso), according to Th. Mommsen (Corpus Inscrip. Lat. ix. Berlin, 1883, p. 257) the chief town of the Caraceni. It lay in a remote situation among the mountains, and where Bovianum is mentioned the reference is generally to Bovianum Undecimanorum. Remains of fortifications and lower down of a temple and a theatre (cf. Römische Mitteilungen, 1903, 154)— the latter remarkable for the fine preservation of the stone seats of the three lowest rows of the auditorium—are to be seen. No less than eight Oscan inscriptions have been found.
(T. As.)
BOVIDAE, the name of the family of hollow-horned ruminant mammals typified by the common ox (Bos taurus), and specially characterized by the presence on the skulls of the males or of both sexes of a pair of bony projections, or cores, covered in life with hollow sheaths of horn, which are never branched, and at all events after a very early stage of existence are permanently retained. From this, which is alone sufficient for diagnostic purposes, the group is often called the Cavicornia. For other characteristics see [Pecora]. The Bovidae comprise a great number of genera and species, and include the oxen, sheep, goats, antelopes and certain other kinds which come under neither of these designations. In stature they range from the size of a hare to that of a rhinoceros; and their horns vary in size and shape from the small and simple spikes of the oribi and duiker antlers to the enormous and variously shaped structures borne respectively by buffaloes, wild sheep and kudu and other large antelopes. In geographical distribution the Bovidae present a remarkable contrast to the deer tribe, or Cervidae. Both of these families are distributed over the whole of the northern hemisphere, but whereas the Cervidae are absent from Africa south of the Sahara and well represented in South America, the Bovidae are unknown in the latter area, but are extraordinarily abundant in Africa. Neither group is represented in Australasia; Celebes being the eastern limit of the Bovidae. The present family doubtless originated in the northern half of the Old World, whence it effected an entrance by way of the Bering Strait route into North America, where it has always been but poorly represented in the matter of genera and species.
The Bovidae are divided into a number of sections, or subfamilies, each of which is briefly noticed in the present article, while fuller mention of some of the more important representatives of these is made in other articles.
The first section is that of the Bovinae, which includes buffaloes, bison and oxen. The majority of these are large and heavily-built ruminants, with horns present in both sexes, the muzzle broad, moist and naked, the nostrils lateral, no face-glands, and a large dewlap often developed in the males; while the tail is long and generally tufted, although in one instance longhaired throughout. The horns are of nearly equal size in both sexes, are placed on or near the vertex of the skull, and may be either rounded or angulated, while their direction is more or less outwards, with an upward direction near the tips, and conspicuous knobs or ridges are never developed on their surface. The tall upper molars have inner columns. The group is represented throughout the Old World as far east as Celebes, and has one living North American representative. All the species may be included in the genus Bos, with several subgeneric divisions (see [Anoa], [Aurochs], [Bantin], [Bison], [Buffalo], [Gaur], [Gayal], [Ox] and [Yak]).