586 UNGULATA. 



turbance can excite their anger and render them terrible. The angry 

 Bonassus puts out his dark-red tongue, roils his red eyes, and dashes 

 with fury at the object of his wrath. An old bull ruled for a long time 

 over the road running through the forest of Bialowicz, and did much 

 mischief. He stopped carriages, or sleighs, especially those laden with 

 hay. If the peasants threatened him, he charged and threw the sleigh 

 over. Horses were terrified at the sight of him, and seemed to lose 

 their senses. The Bonassus and the domestic ox similarly display a 

 mutual repugnance, and even the calves which are brought up by tame 

 cows exhibit no change in this respect. 



It has been disputed whether the Bonassus occurs in the Caucasus. 

 The balance of evidence seems to indicate that they are found in Abkasia 

 from the Kuban to the source of tlie Psib. At a dinner given to General 

 Rosen by a Caucasian chief, sixty silver-mounted bonassus-horns served 

 as drinking-cups. Hunters have shot them on the Great Selentshuga, 

 and say tiiat they extend upward to the snow line. 



THE BISON. 



The American Bison, Bison Aunricanus (Plate XLV), is usually 

 called the Buffalo. " As Buffalo, he is known everywhere," writes 

 General Dodge, "as Buffalo he lives, as Buffalo he dies, and when, as 

 will soon happen, his race has vanished from earth, as Buffalo he will 

 live in story and tradition." It is a giant among our mammals ; its 

 bulk, shaggy mane, vicious eye and sullen behavior give it a ferocious 

 appearance, but it really is a mild, inoffensive beast, unwieldy, sluggish, 

 and stupid. A few years ago, tiie numbers of these animals was past all 

 counting. General Dodge, in 1871, dro\e from Fort Zara to Fort 

 Lamed, a distance of thirty-four miles. At least twenty-five miles of 

 this distance was through an immense herd of buffalo. " The whole 

 country appeared one mass of buffalo; hut the apparentl}* solid mass 

 was really an agglomeration of innumerable small herds of from fifty tc 

 two hundred animals. When I had reached a point where the hills were 

 only a mile from the road, the buffalo on the hills started at full speed 

 directly toward me, stampeding and bringing with them the numberless 

 herds through which they passed, pouring down upon me in one im- 

 mense comi)act mass of plunging animals, mad with fright, and irresist- 



