242 On Man's Influence in effecting 



To the first class belong, for example, the reports of wild 

 carnivorous bulls, which Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus, 

 and Strabo mention as being found in the country to the south- 

 west of the Red Sea. Here lions have no doubt been mista- 

 ken for zubrs. The general shape of the two animals is, in- 

 deed, much alike, and, in many points, the resemblance is 

 striking, as in the mane, the comparative slenderness of the 

 hind train, and in the tail, though this organ is much shorter 

 in the zubr. This conjecture is rendered the more probable 

 by the circumstance, that a mouth opening to the ears, and 

 moveable horns, are ascribed to these wild oxen. Should 

 any one doubt that the ancients were subject to such gross 

 mistakes, 1 would recall to his memory the fact, that the Ro- 

 mans took the first elephants they saw for oxen, thinking, no 

 doubt, that the tusks were horns ; whence the Roman name 

 of ''bos luca?* for the elephant. 



In passing over other palpable instances of one species hav- 

 ing been mistaken for another, I shall now mention a few 

 cases where circumstances, which have been observed by the 

 ancients in bovine animals, have been referred to wrong caus- 

 es, from which have been drawn conclusions, that have alto- 

 gether perverted the descriptions of the animals under consi- 

 deration, and misled others to multiply the species. The 

 aggregate of fables, with here and there an interesting fact, 

 which ^Elian has compiled under the name of i Tlz$i Zaoov <&o- 

 TflTOf,' might supply us with a few examples of this sort ; but 

 as it contains scarcely more than one or two useful hints in 

 the many passages where bovine animals are mentioned, I 

 feel some reluctance to quote from him, (lib. xiv. c. 11) the 

 place where he speaks of the wild oxen of Lybia, that walk 

 backwards, because their horns are so grown, that they can- 

 not see before them. Everybody knows that all oxen, what- 



* Pliny gives the following etymological explanation of that term. — "E- 

 lephantes Italia primum vidit Pyrrhi regis bello, et boves lucas appellavit, 

 in Lucanis visos."-— Hist. Nat. viii. 6. Varro, ' De Ling. Rom.' vi. 3. en- 

 quires into the o 'g- : n of the tenn 'Zwra,' and gives several other conjec- 

 tures, though that ol Pliny appears to deserve the preference before all others. 

 As to the term '60s,' as applied to the elephants, he gives the reason, — " ab 

 eo, quod nostri, cum maximam quadrupedem, quam ipsi haberent, vocarent 

 bovem, et in Lucanis Pyrrhi bello primum vidissent apud hosteis elephan- 

 tos, lucam bovem appellasse ;" and he never thinks of the tusks, which the 

 Romans, frightened as they were, might easily mistake for horns. 



" Ut Lucas boves 

 " Olim resumpto praeferoces praelio, 

 "Fugit juventus Romula." Seneca: Hippol. 351. 

 Even Conrad Gesner, the author of the ' Icones Animalium,' was not quite 

 sure whether the elephant had horns or not. " Elephanti cornua dentes vi- 

 dentur." See ed. of Heidelberg, 1606, p. 29. 



