492 BOVID A. 
Cuvier, who has collected, with his usual research, all 
the notices in the poets and historians of those periods, 
cites amongst others the following passage from Seneca, 
which briefly and clearly defines the characteristics of the 
two species : 
“* Tibi dant varia pectora tigres, 
Tibi villosi terga bisontes 
Latisque feri cornibus uri.” 
Pliny characterises the Bison by its mane, and distinguishes 
the “ jubatos bisontes” from the “ excellentique vi et velocitate 
uros,’—the Uri remarkable for their strength and speed. 
One of the species of the great primitive European wild 
cattle, now known as the Lithuanian Aurochs, still sur- 
vives by virtue of strict protective laws, in extensive fo- 
rests, which form part of the Russian Empire; and it is 
distinguished from all the breeds of domestic cattle of Eu- 
rope, and from the Chillingham wild oxen, by the thicker 
clothing of hair, which, in the male Aurochs, is developed 
at the fore-part of the body into a curly felted mane, jus- 
tifying the distinctive epithets of ‘ villous” and ‘‘ maned,” 
applied by the Romans to the wild Bison of their period. 
The Aurochs, (Bison) differs, moreover, from all the 
species or varieties of ordinary Ox (Bos) by more im- 
portant characters, deducible, fortunately, from those en- 
during parts of its body which serve to reveal its ex- 
istence in Europe, at periods more remote than the 
conquests of Cesar. The differences observable in the 
skull, for example, of the Bos and Bison are thus accu- 
rately and distinetly defined by Cuvier : 
“The forehead of the Ox (Bos) is flat, and even slightly 
concave ; that of the Aurochs (Bison) is convex (bombé), 
though somewhat less so than in the Buffalo: it is quad- 
rate m the Ox, its height, taking the base between the 
