THE AMERICAN BISONS. 21 
same time regarding all the bisons, recent and fossil, as belonging to the 
same species! 
Lilljeborg, in 1874, also very strangely referred. all the bisons, both living 
and extinct, to the Bos bonasus of Linnzeus, ignoring alike the prominent osteo- 
logical as well as external features that distinguish the aurochs from the 
American bison, and the enormous differences that distinguish the Bison dati- 
frons Leidy, not only from both the B. americanus and B. bonasus, but also 
from the other extinct species, B. priscus and B. antiquus, —a thing he could 
not have done had he worked from specimens or duly weighed the published 
evidence. 
BISON ANTIQUUS Lerpy. 
The Smaller Extinct American Bison. 
Bos urus BucKuanp, Beechey’s Voy. to the Pacific, II, 539, pl. ili, fig. 1- 7, 1831. 
Bison antiquus Lurpy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1852, 117; 1854, 210; 1867, 85; Mem. Ext. Spee. 
Amer. Ox, 11, pl. ii, fig. 1, 1852 (Smithsonian Contributions, Vol. II]. 
Bison priscus ? Ricuarpson, Zool. Voy. of Herald, 83, 139, pls. vi, figs. 5, 6, vii, x, figs. 1 — 6, xiii, fig. 
3, 1852 — 54 (female). 
Bison priscus Leipy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, 210; Ext. Mam. of North America, 371, 1869 
(Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., new Ser., VII). 
Bison crassicornis Ricuarpson, Zool. Voy. of Herald, 40, 139, pls. ix, xi, fig. 6, xii, figs. 1-4, xiii, figs. 
1, 2, xv, figs. 1-4, 1852-54 (male). — Leipy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, 210. 
Bison latifrons Lerpy, Mem. Ext. Spec. Amer, Ox (in part); Extinct Mam. N. Amer., 371, 1869 (in 
part) ; Extinct Vertebrate Fauna, 253 (in part), pl. xxviii, figs. 4— 7, 1873. 
? Fossil Ox, PErxrns, Amer. Journ. Sci., XLIT, 137, 1842. 
Bison, Buffalo, Wurrney, Geol. Surv. California, Geol., I, 252, 1865. 
The Bison antiquus of Dr. Leidy was first described from a fragment of horn- 
core, having a small portion of the frontal bone attached, found at Big-bone 
Lick, Kentucky. It was at first hesitatingly regarded as a distinct species, 
Dr. Leidy having suspicions that it might prove to be the female of Bison 
latifrons, and in his later notices of the group he has referred it to that 
species. The fragment indicates, however, an animal of about the size of the 
male of the smaller extinct bison, whose remains have thus far been found 
mainly in California and Alaska, and is probably identical with the species de- 
scribed by Dr. Richardson under the name Bison erassicornis, based on remains 
from the ice-cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay. Of late years all these names have 
been regarded by Dr. Leidy—the only author who has really given the 
