NO. 2021. EXTINCT BISONS OF NORTH AMERICA— HAY. 163 



It may be here remarked that La Baume, following Nathusius, made 

 use, as a standard for comparison, of a measurement which is to be 

 recommended; but which the present writer has not been able to use 

 to any considerable extent. This measurement is the distance from 

 the lower border of the foramen magnum to the base of the nasals. 

 In but few fossil skulls can the basilar length be obtained; while in 

 many the fronto-nasal suture remains. The measurement in question, 

 called by La Baume ''Schadeldurchmesser" might be called in 

 English the bastnasal length. 



In the same year that La Baume published his paper Max Hilz- 

 heimer ^ described as a new species Bison primitivus. The type of 

 this species had been found near Kisensk, on the Lena River, Siberia. 

 This will be referred to again on page 177. In a second paper ^ 

 HUzheimer described Bison uriformis, basing it on part of a skull 

 with complete horn-cores, found near Kottbus, in Prussia; also, 

 Bison europseus lenensis, ^ on a nearly complete skull, with horn- 

 sheaths, which had been collected on the Vilui River, an affluent of 

 the Lena; furthermore, he recognized* a second specimen of his 

 B. primitivus, brought from Vologda, in Eastern Russia. The two 

 last-named skulls were among those studied by La Baume. 



If the fossil bisons of Europe are to be subdivided into species, or, 

 as some doubtless prefer to call them, subspecies or races, it will be 

 first of all necessary to determine what is the form to which the term 

 priscus is to be applied. This may not be a wholly easy matter; at 

 least, so far as the writer knows, no one has yet attempted to place 

 the name on a solid basis. It is generally credited to Bojanus ^ 

 who uses the combination Urus priscus. If this were the first use 

 of the specific name, as applied to a fossil bison, the reviser might 

 select as the type any one of the five specimens catalogued by 

 Bojanus; and thus the further usefulness of the name would depend 

 on the quality of the reviser's mercy. However, Bojanus himself 

 indicates ("nomine aliis auctoribus iam recepto") that he was not 

 the first to use the name. H. von Meyer's Pal^ologica, etc., in 

 which he states that he has dealt with the literature, is not accessible 

 to the present writer; but he finds, through the good offices of 

 Dr. C. W. Richmond, that Schlotheim, in 1820," applied the title 

 Bos urus priscus to three specimens which had been found somewhere 

 in the neighborhood of Gotha, Germany. One of these was a com- 

 plete horn-core, over 2 feet long; another, the lower half of a stUl 

 thicker horn-core, together with a part of a skull. Schlotheim 



1 Jahreshefte Ver. vaterl. Naturk., vViirttemberg, 1909, pp. 241-269, pis. 6, 7. 



2 Sitz.-Ber. Ges. naturf. Freunde, Berlin, 1910, p. 138, figs. 3, 4. 



3 Page 144, figs. 8, 9. 

 « Page 142, figs. 6, 7. 



B Nova Acta, etc., vol. 13, 1827, p. 427. 

 ' Petrefectenkunde, p. 10. 



