General Zoological Changes. 305 



Art. II. On the Influence of Man in modifying the Zoological Fea- 

 tures of the Globe ; with Statistical Accounts respecting a few of 

 the more important Species. By W. Weissenborn, D. Ph. 

 ( Continued from Page 256). 



Description, Habits, &c. of the Bos urus. 

 Of all animals now existing and sufficiently well known, the 

 American bison, {Bos Americanus), bears the greatest resem- 

 blance to the Bos urus. This resemblance is close enough 

 to have induced even Pallas to take both for the same species, 

 and I think a description of either ought to begin with com- 

 paring one with the other. 



The comparative shortness of the legs, tail, and horns, the 

 weakness of the croup, the somewhat greater breadth of the 

 forehead, and the orbits, which descend less, and have less 

 projecting rims in the Bos Americanus, constitute differences 

 of outward structure, which to a somewhat practised eye give 

 to that species an aspect, by which it may be at once distin- 

 guished from the Bos urus. Besides, the B. Americanus has 

 fifteen pairs of ribs and as many dorsal vertebra, and only four 

 lumbar vertebra, whereas in the B. urus, the numbers are re- 

 spectively fourteen and five. Moreover the American ox has 

 not the same antipathy to the B. taurus as the zubr ; it may 

 be used to produce a mixed breed with the domesticated cat- 

 tle, and is, at all events, more tameable, as numbers of them 

 are kept in the paddocks of the western states of North Ame- 

 rica, whereof I obtained certain information from Mr. W. 

 Lenz, who returned from his travels in America but a few 

 months ago ; and lastly, I cannot find in any work I have con- 

 sulted on the subject, that the B. Americanus smells of musk. 

 The original natural size of the two animals is about the same, 

 the weight of the two animals being about a ton. 



I shall now compare the B. urus with one of his congeners 

 better known to European readers, and by entering more in- 

 to detail, endeavour to bring, at the same time, many essen- 

 tial parts of the description of the former to the notice of the 

 reader. Let us represent to ourselves a bull, whose upper 

 mesial line, beginning at the atlas and ending at the root of 

 the tail, does not approach to the horizontal, but slopes down- 

 wards, both before and behind the fourth to the seventh dor- 

 sal vertebrae, (or those which answer to the withers), namely, 

 before, at an angle of about 30°, and behind, at one of about 

 15°. The chest of the B. urus appears therefore considera- 

 bly higher, and the whole of its fore-quarters more developed, 

 than in the tame ox, whilst the hind-quarters are not only 

 more gracefully built, but appear the more so from contrast, 



