General Zoological Changes. 247 



that these skins were ever sent te Rome in Pliny's time, for 

 in that case he would have given a more detailed description 

 of the Urus ; and thus the knowledge which the Roman sol- 

 diers in Germany had of the animal, did not turn out profit- 

 able to the science. 



We have now to consider those writers, of whom Cuvier 

 says, that they can testify to the specific difference of the Bi- 

 son and Urus, as eye-witnesses, because they had seen them 

 in the circus. There is a passage in one of the tragedies com- 

 monly ascribed to Seneca,* the vagueness of which is fully 

 proved by the circumstance that the Bison had also very large 

 horns ; wherefore we may as well suppose that the Urus may 

 have had a shaggy skin, although the poet does not mention 

 the latter character in the one animal, nor the former in the 

 other. But the passage on which Cuvier chiefly relies, is one 

 from Martial,t where the Bubalus and Bison are brought to- 

 gether, as having appeared in the arena. Yet though we have 

 the testimony of Pliny, that the " imperitum valgus " called 

 the Urus, t Bubalus,' we also have the same authority! for 

 knowing that the real Bubalas lived in Africa ; and I think 

 it much more probable that Martial, who was not numbered 

 with the "imperitum vulgus" had in view the animal brought 

 from Africa under the name of Bubalus. The same author 

 speaks of bisons having drawn cars ;§ and we have the testi- 

 mony of Pausanias,|| that those of Paeonia were caught alive, 

 and sometimes tamed by hunger ; whereas the nations inha- 

 biting the Hercynian forest, never tried or contrived to tame 

 the Uri, which they had caught in pits.H Thus it is easily 

 explained, why there were seen in the Roman circus animals 

 called bisons, and none called Uri. 



If we refer to Solinus, an author who is supposed to have 

 lived in the third century, we find he states that the same 

 tract which Caesar informs us was the true breeding- ground 

 of the Uri, swarmed with bisons.** We may therefore sup- 

 pose that about that time, the nations of Dacia and the south 

 of Germany, had already become accustomed to the Greek 



* " Tibi dant variae pectora tigres, 

 " Tibi villosi terga bisontes 



" Latisque feri cornibus uri." Hippol. Act i. v. 63. 

 f " UK cessit atrox bubalus atque bison." De Spect. Ep. xxiii. 

 + Plin. H.N. lib. viii. c. 15. 

 §"Turpes esseda quod trahunt bisontes." — Mart. i. cv. 

 ||Pausanias, lib. ix. c. 13. f Caesar, B. G. lib. vi. c. 28. 



**C. Jul. Solinus, c. 23, de Germania, in speaking of the Hercynian fo- 

 rest, says : '*' In hoc tractu, et in omni septentrionali plaga, bisontes frequen- 

 tissimi, qui bubus feris similes, setosi colla, jubas horridi, ultra tauros per 

 nicitatc, capti assuescere manu nesciunt." 



