General Zoological Changes. 251 



In the authors of that period of the middle ages which fol- 

 lows the reigns of the early Frankonian kings, down to the 

 time of the reformation, we look in vain for information which 

 would enlighten us more on the point in question. The prin- 

 ces and knights had, as to the wild oxen, no higher aim than 

 that of hunting and eating them ; the minstrels cared very lit- 

 tle for the scientific part of Natural History ; and the monks 

 faithfully copied what had been written a thousand years ago. 

 It is scarcely credible, but nevertheless true, that the monk 

 Aimonius, (Aimoine)* who wrote his four books of French 

 History,* about a thousand years after Caesar, has copied ver- 

 batim what the latter says of the Urus, though he might have 

 obtained much better information, had he taken the trouble 

 to consult living authorities. But towards the middle of the 

 17th century, appeared an author of note, Herberstein,f who 

 gives a decided opinion on the subject, which has influenced 

 all subsequent writers down to the latest period. Herberstein 

 gives descriptions and figures of two bovine animals, which 

 he says were found in Poland at the time he visited that coun- 

 try. The one he calls Bison, Lat. ; Zubr, Pol. ; and Bisont, 

 Germ. ; adding, that ignorant people name it Urus : the other, 

 Urus, Lat. ; Tar, Pol. ; and Aurox, Germ. ; adding, that ig- 

 norant people call it Bisons. The description and figure of 

 the former agree very well with the animal now found in the 

 forest of Bialowicza ; those of the latter, which Herberstein 

 states to live only in a few preserves or parks of Muscovia, 

 are, in every essential respect, like those of the domestic horn- 

 ed cattle. As Herberstein staid a considerable time at the 

 court of king Sigismundus Augustus, we might, at first sight, 

 believe that he had ample opportunities of observing for himself 

 the objects of his report. But if we look more closely into 

 his statement, we shall find much internal evidence respect- 

 ing a great want of precise information about the Tur ; and 

 it is my conviction, that most of what he says on that animal 

 has been palmed upon him. In addition to what Bojanus 

 alleges,! as being favorable to the opinion that the turs of 

 Masovia were a few individuals of the original wild ox, (Bos 

 taurus), which had escaped death or domestication, such as, 

 he says, are still found in a few parks of Scotland and Eng- 

 land ; or what Jarocki states§ to prove that the tur was the 



* Duchesne's Script. Hist. Franc. ; see Aimonius. Hist. Franc, lib. i. c. 2. 



t Rerum Muscoviticarum Commentarii. Basil, 1556. j Lib. c. p. 416. seq. 



§Jarocky, O Pusczy Bialowiezkiey, Warsaw, 1830. The chief argument 

 of which this author makes use, to refute Herberstein, and to establish the 

 identity of the tur and zubr, is, that the people in Masovia still know the 

 plants of which the animal they called tur was most fond, and that they are 



