THE BISONS OF THE CAUCASUS. 



847 



kesses and other aborigines, which lasted until about 1860. This is 

 why, for a long time, the earlier explorers, notably Pallas, who 

 merely penetrated to the borders of these regions, found only the 

 bones of the bison, and therefore supposed it to be extinct. Still an 

 author of the seventeenth centur}'^, Archangel© Lamberti, speaks of 

 the survival of the Caucasian bison. The Eussian naturalist, Behr, 

 received in 183G a bison skin from the Caucasus, by means of which 

 he was able to determine the species and to establish its identity with 

 the Bonasus of the north of Europe. In 1864 the skin of a young 

 bison was sent to the museum of Tiflis; and this superb museum. 



1. Ursus (Aurochs). 2. Bonasus (Bison). 'S. Buffalo. 4. Domestic ox. 



established and for a long time directed by the learned Doctor Radde, 

 under the auspices of the former viceroy of the Caucasus, the Grand 

 Duke Michael Nicolaevitch, has also the glory of possessing the first 

 and the finest specimens of adult animals discovered in these regions. 

 Nevertheless, the bison is distributed in the Caucasus over a very 

 limited area (about 2.000 sq. miles). The region preferred by 

 them is about the sources and upper portion of the Bielaja and the 

 Malaja Laba (the White or Grand and the Little Laba), as well as 

 their affluents, at the foot of the Shougous and Abagua mountains. 

 To the north of this region stretch the communal forests belonging 



