250 On Mans Influence in effecting 



take for granted none of them had seen, the mane, or shaggy 

 neck of the animal is not mentioned ; but as for the horns, 

 we have as good, and perhaps better evidence that those of 

 the Bison were of enormous size, as that those of the Urus 

 were of large growth. Herodotus says of the Bob; aypioi of 

 Paeonia, "uv rcc ne^ea usrEf^syaSsa." Samios or Simmios, in the 

 epigram on the skin of a wild ox, (probably a Bison), dedi- 

 cated to Hercules by king Philip, the son of Demetrius, (see 

 'Brunckii Anthol.' i. p. 485), first calls the horns " o^yviaia" 

 and then more precisely, "Teo-o-aga nat $t)ta$u$a" (of the size of 

 fourteen palms); and if therefore Caesar and Solinus ascribe 

 to the Urus large horns, this can only argue for the opinion 

 that the Bison and Urus were the same animal. The monk 

 of St. Gallen likewise says of the animal wounded by Carolus 

 Magnus and killed by Isambardus, which he calls Bison vel 

 Urus, that its horns were of an enormous size, {imi?ianissi?nis 

 cornibus in testimonium prolatis), and this various evidence 

 is quite in harmony with what we may suppose the horns of 

 the zubr to have been at an earlier period. For that animal, 

 which has now dwindled down to the weight of 700 pounds 

 for the largest specimens, and which formerly must have been 

 when full grown, at least 2000 pounds, still has horns that 

 measure, from tip to tip, round their curves and over the fore- 

 head, four French feet.* We may therefore take for granted 

 that, at a time when the old zubrs grew to the weight of 2000 

 pounds and more, their horns encompassed from seven to eight 

 feet, and must have excited the greatest wonder in the behold- 

 ers. As late as the beginning of the 17th century, specimens 

 were killed in Poland weighing 1800 pounds ; and the state- 

 ment of Herberstein, that about the beginning of the 16th cen- 

 tury one was found, between whose horns three stout men 

 could sit, is therefore not so incredible as Bojanus thinks it. 

 Moreover, I cannot see why the origin of our tame cattle 

 should be traced to a wild species, distinguished for the im- 

 mense size of its horns. In no breed of oxen that I am ac- 

 quainted with, has the bull very large horns. The uncom- 

 mon size to which they often grow, is a consequence of cas- 

 tration, a circumstance already indicated by Democritus, as 

 testified by yElian, ('TIe^i Zcow faonrroi,' lib. xii. c. 19). In 

 Hungary it is statedf there are oxen whose horns measure six 

 feet from tip to tip, but this I suppose to be only the effect of 

 castration. 



* Bojanus, 'De Uro nostrate,' Nova Acta Acad. Caes. Leop. Carol, vol. 

 v xiii. pp. 451 and 452. " Spatium inter cornuum radicem, ubi angustissi- 

 mum, 1 pes. Cornuum longitudo, juxta convexum eorum marginem, la p 



tGemeinnutzigeNaturgcscliichte,vonDr.H.C.Lenz,Gotlia,1835,p.406. 



