FEB., 1912. MAMMALS OF ILLINOIS AND WISCONSIN CORY. 4V 87 



Family BOVID^E. Bison, Oxen, Sheep, etc. 



Horns curved and cylindrical, simple (not branched), hollow and 

 permanent (not annually shed), usually present in both sexes; lach- 

 rymal bone almost always articulating with the nasal; no canine 

 teeth or incisors in upper jaw ; canines in lower jaw resembling incisors ; 

 stomach divided into four compartments as in most other Ruminants ; 

 gall bladder present;* lateral digits represented by "false hoofs" or 

 absent. A widely distributed family, including the American Bison 

 or Buffalo, Oxen, Sheep, Goats, etc., as well as the true Antelopes, 

 but not the so-called American Antelope or Pronghorn which is usually 

 placed in a family by itself. f Three subfamilies are represented in 

 North America: Bison (Bovinei); Musk-oxen (Ovibovind); and Moun- 

 tain Sheep and Goats (Caprince). 



Genus BISON H. Smith. 



Bison H. Smith, Griffith's Cuvier Animal Kingdom, V, 1827, p. 373. 



Type Bos bison Linn. 



Horns curved and cylindrical, hollow and permanent; body covered 

 with woolly hair; head, part of neck and upper fore legs covered with 

 long, shaggy hair; a "hump" on shoulders due to unusually long 

 vertebral spines at that point; horns and hoofs black. 



Dental formula: I. - C. < Pm. ^. M. = 32. 

 3-3 i-i 3-3 3-3 



The living representatives of this genus are the American Bison 

 and its northern race, the Wood Bison, together with the European 

 Bison (B. bonasus}, which still exists in parts of Lithuania, Roumania, 

 and the Caucasus. 



Bison bison (LINN.). 



AMERICAN BISON. BUFFALO. 



[Bos] bison LINNAEUS, Syst. Nat., X ed., 1758, p. 72. 



B[i5ow] bison JORDAN, Man. Vert. Anim., 5th ed., 1888, p. 337. 



Bison bison GARMAN, Bull. Essex Inst., XXVI, 1894, p. 4 (Kentucky). RHOADS, 



Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1896 (1897), p. 177 (Tennessee). OSBORK, Annals 



of Iowa, VI, 1905, p. 563 (Iowa). 



* Except in Cephalopus. 



t Dr. M. W. Lyon considers the American Antelope to belong to the family 

 Bovidce. (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XXXIV, 1908, p. 398.) 



