THE BISONS OF THE CAUCASUS. 351 



year 1897 there were three more victims, two males and a female. 

 One of the males killed by Doctor Reyer, director of the museum at 

 Dresden, is to-day preserved in that institution. Since then the order 

 as to the killing of the cows has been more strictly observed. The 

 total number of animals killed does not exceed twelve. 



I have already said that the bison of the Caucasus belongs, zoolog- 

 ically speaking, to the same race as those of Bielowitza, but it is dis- 

 tinguished by its height, which is relatively less, as well as by the 

 conformation of certain parts of its bod3\" It is also much wilder 

 and more difficult to approach than its kindred of Lithuania that 

 have, for a long time, been accustomed to the jjresence of man and 

 his domestic animals, by the side of which they are sometimes seen 

 quietl}^ feeding. In spite of the relatively small number of indi- 

 viduals, both at Bielowitza and in the Caucasus, no sign of degen- 

 eration of race has been manifested up to the present time. If the 

 bison of Bielowitza, inhabiting a fiat country, accessible in every 

 direction, are quite easily captured, especially in the marshy portions 

 of the forest, where they move about with difficulty, it is quite other- 

 wise with the bison of the Caucasus. Up to the present time but a 

 single living specimen has been obtained, and this, too, was but a 

 young calf which had just been born. The story of its capture is 

 interesting and worth recording here. 



One of the wardens of the grand duke, hunting bears in the forest, 

 perceived a bison cow hidden in the brush, with its little one at its 

 side. At the approach of man the cow sprang up and was off like 

 an arrow, abandoning its progeny to its sad fate. The little one also 

 arose without any apprehension of danger, looked at the hunter with 

 a stupefied gaze, settled back upon its haunches and at first did not 



1 Some Russian scientists think these peculiarities sufficient to mark the 

 Caucasian bison as a variety which they designate by the name of Bos bonasus 

 caucasicus, nov. subsp., but others do not agree \Yith this opinion. We recall 

 what confusion Jias reigned for a long time in the designations urus, aurochs, 

 bison; in recent memoirs, M. ]Mahoudeau (Revue annuelle de TEcole d'anthro- 

 pologie de Paris, February, 1905), M. Lombard-Dumas (Bulletin de la Societe 

 d'etudes des sciences naturelles de Nimes, in 100.5, vol. XXXIII, November, 

 1906, pp. 37 and 6.5) and Prof. A. Merteus (Abhandl. des Museums der Magde- 

 burg, 1906), contend that the aurochs is the Urus or Bos primigenius, which 

 disappeared from Europe about the end of the sixteenth century, that it had 

 neither hump nor mane, and that it, alone, left its remains in the caverns of 

 Gard ; since the time of Julius Caesar it has been continually confounded with 

 the true bison {Bonasus) , which has a mane, a hump, and smaller, less divergent 

 horns ; it is this and not the aurochs which was depicted at Altamira and in 

 Dordogne. La Grande Encyclopedie (Vol. VII, p. 55) is therefore wrong in 

 confounding the European bison with the aurochs. The whole matter is very 

 much mixed. In order to fix the reader's ideas upon this subject we give (p. 347) 

 a. drawing of the skulls of four bovidcc — the Urus, the Bonasus, the buffalo, and 

 the domestic ox. 



