240 On Man's Influence in effecting 



now under consideration has been driven, as to its last asylum, 

 by incessant persecution, and the thinning of the woods which 

 it formerly haunted ; and there its existence is prolonged on- 

 ly by preservative game laws, and the more direct care of 

 man, who partially supplies it with food during the cold sea- 

 son. But even the forest of Bialowicza must, in the course 

 of time, change its wild aspect, when, through the progress 

 of civilization, and the increase in the numbers of the inha- 

 bitants of Lithuania, that wilderness shall have been subject- 

 ed to a regular rotation of forest culture. The most severe 

 game enactments could not prevent the last zubr in the forest 

 of Tilsit, where that species formerly existed under much the 

 same conditions as it does now in the forest of Bialowicza, 

 from being killed by a poacher, as early as 1775 ; (see Dr. 

 Hagen, ' Geshicte des preussischen Auers, in Beitrage zur 

 Kunde Preussens, Konigsberg, 1819, ii. 3, p. 225 et seq.): and 

 the rigour of the Russian law has already relented so far, in 

 consideration of the relative value of man and the lower ani- 

 mals, that he who kills a zubr without the permission of go- 

 vernment, no longer forfeits his life, but pays 2000 rubles; or 

 if unable to meet the penalty, he is transported to Siberia. — 

 We may therefore anticipate that however desirous individu- 

 als may be to perpetuate the existence of the species, which, 

 however, has already degenerated, inasmuch as it does not 

 grow to the same bulk in its present circumscribed abode, at 

 no very distant period it will be found only in a few museums, 

 or be known from books or drawings. 



This consideration makes it the more desirable that the his- 

 tory and description of the zubr should be settled in our time, 

 with as much precision as possible. As to its osteological 

 features, this task may be considered as having been almost 

 fully accomplished by Bojanus, in his learned monograph, 

 ('De Uro nostrate, ejusque Sceleto' ; Vilnae, 1825), inserted 

 in the second part of the thirteenth volume of the ' Nova Acta 

 Physico-Medica Acad. Caes. Leop. Car. Nat. Cur.' ; Bonnae, 

 1827. The same, however, cannot be said as to the other 

 points of its natural history. 



In turning our minds seriously to this subject, we can 

 scarcely refrain from reviewing the early history of an animal 



condition of which, as well as the absence of all external injury, proved 

 that they had died of some disease; and I remember two cases, where, in a 

 district over-stocked with roe deer, nearly the whole of them were destroy- 

 ed by larva of the (Estrus, bred in their nostrils ; at which time numerous 

 carcasses were found in the woods and their outskirts. 



