General Zoological Changes. 307 



only extends over the middle of the upper lip, and the bor- 

 ders of the nostrils, whereas in the B. taurus it forms a broad 

 surface. As for the teeth, the number of which is the same 

 in all the species, those of the zubr are better adapted to 

 scrape, as well as to triturate hard substances, as bark and 

 branches. The incisors of the zubr are therefore stronger and 

 rougher above, and the last three molars, which increase in 

 size posteriorly, (but are nearly of the same size throughout 

 in the B. taurus), are furnished with an additional tubercle, 

 rising from the middle of their crowns. The ears and eyes 

 are smaller, and the mouth is more contracted in the zubr. — 

 Its chest is not only higher, but also wider and without a dew- 

 lap. The scrotum is never pendulous, but wrinkled, and the 

 testes are scarcely larger than those of a ram. The udder and 

 teats of the zubr cow are far less developed, and the tail of 

 the Bos urus with its brush, which measures from 10 to 11 

 inches, does not come lower down than the hock joint. The 

 legs of the zubr are, however, higher than those of the Bos 

 taurus. The hair of the latter is stiff, lying close to the skin 

 and much of the same description throughout ; that of the 

 zubr is softer, standing off at an obtuse angle, and of two ve- 

 ry different sorts. 



After these comparisons the rest of my description will re- 

 fer to the zubr alone. The size of this animal in its present 

 abode is considerably less than it was formerly ; a deteriora- 

 tion which may be observed in all those wild herbivorous ani- 

 mals, whose liberty is checked by the approach of human 

 cultivation, and which no longer have a perfectly uncontroll- 

 ed choice of locality and pasture. The six-years-old male 

 lately obtained for the museum of Wilna, measured only 6 ft. 

 11 J French inches from the crown of the head to the tuber 

 ischii, and 4 ft. 4j inches from the highest part of the os sa- 

 crum, down through the trochanter to the calces, whereas the 

 height at the withers was 4 ft. 9 in. Yet we read that in 1595 

 an auerochs, 13 ft. long and 7 ft. high, was killed near Fried- 

 richsburg;* and another specimen, killed along with forty-one 

 others, in the forest of Bialowicza, by King Augustus III, of 

 Poland, as late as 1752, weighed 1450 lbs., as testified on a 

 monument erected on the spot where the animal was slain. — 

 Count Joh. Sigismundus held a hunting party in 1612, when 

 eight auerochs were killed, the largest of which weighed 1770 

 lbs. And in the more remote ages we may suppose that the 

 old bulls sometimes grew to a size, which makes the statement 



*See Henneberger, 'Erklarung der grossern preussichen Landtafel,' ii. 

 3. 251. Here the head was probably included in the measurement. 



