32 Zoology of Colorado 



the moon shining through the window. The animal examined 

 the premises with the utmost composure, as though fully aware 

 that if I annoyed it I should have to spend the rest of the night 

 outside. As soon as it disappeared through the door, I jumped 

 up and took a shot at it as it ran. But it seemed to realize that 

 it was not so safe outside, and made all haste to a pile of rocks, 

 among which it made its escape. The English naturalist A. R. 

 Wallace, in his Darwinism, tells of meeting a skunk, which showed 

 as little fear as some tame animal. He instanced this as an illus- 

 tration of warning coloration, the skunk's black and white adver- 

 tising it and its qualities to all passers-by. 



UNGULATA 

 The ungulates or hoofed mammals are represented by three 

 families and four genera in Colorado at the present time; or five 

 genera if we include the bison, abundant within the recollection 

 of men still living. The families are Bovidae (sheep and oxen), 

 Antilocapridae (pronghorns or American antelopes) and Cervidae 

 (deer). The bison or so-called buffalo was named Bos bison by 

 Linnaeus, the name being based on the form in northern Mexico. 

 In 1827 Hamilton Smith proposed a genus Bison for this animal, 

 which accordingly becomes Bison bison*. In the Mackenzie 

 Region of British America the bison are larger and darker, and 

 have been separated as a subspecies athabascae. It is also said 

 that the extinct animal of the Eastern States was appreciably 

 different, and it has been proposed to call it pennsylv aniens. The 

 European bison or wisent (Bison bonasus) is very similar in appear- 

 ance, as may be noted at the New York Zoological Garden, where 

 both species are exhibited. The oxen (including the bison) belong 

 to an Old World group, which appears to have reached America 

 in quite recent geological times. Fossil bison of the Pleistocene 

 period have been found in numerous localities in the United States, 

 and these belong to several species. Thus, according to Williston 

 (1897) there were during this epoch no less than three kinds of 

 bison in Kansas. Hay (1923) concludes that the extinct Bison 

 occidentalis of Lucas lived in Minnesota at least until the middle 



♦There is however some confusion in the names employed. The Bos bison of Ray was 

 the European bison, and the name Bison originally belonged to the wisent. Accordingly 

 Gmelin ( 1 788) called our bison Bos americanus, and this name has been widely accepted. Sher- 

 bom (Index Animalium) cites Bison G. Edwards in Catesby, 1771, as the earliest valid use of 

 this generic name. 



