410 Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 



from their skins, except a slight difference in the curve of the 

 horns, and the presence of a dark coloured streak which runs 

 along the back of the one, and is not present in the other. 

 These differences, it will be perceived, are quite insufficient to 

 enable us to conclude whether the wild bull of the Caucasus is 

 to be regarded a distinct species from that of Lithuania, and it 

 is only by the examination of the skeleton that this can be deter- 

 mined. It isnow several years since notice was given of a wild bull 

 named The Gaour, B. Gaurus, in the interior of India, between 

 the coast of Coromandel and the Bay of Calcutta. The exist- 

 ence of a zoubre or bison in the Caucasus has led M. Baer to 

 infer that this bull is also a bison, the incomplete description 

 which has been published corresponding with sufficient accuracy 

 with what is known of the Caucasian animal. M. Baer also con- 

 ceives it very probable that the same animal is found on the other 

 side of the Ganges. He grounds this supposition upon the re- 

 cital of Captain Low, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of 

 London. Finally, and moreover, he does not doubt that it now 

 sojourns in the central parts of Asia, and extends even towards 

 its eastern portion. In fact he agrees with Schmidt in thinking 

 that the Mongolian writings allude to this animal, where they 

 mention a wild bull which frequents the environs of the lake 

 Kokkonoor, and also the Chinese province of Khansi ; which 

 is distinguished from the YaTt, Bos Grunniens, and which the 

 Mongolian dictionaries thus describe. " It resembles a com- 

 mon ox ; the anterior portion of its body is high, the posterior 

 sloping and narrow; its coat is of a deep-slate colour, or deep 

 brown or blackish." The zoubre or bison, then, he remarks in 

 concluding, is still at the present time dispersed into several herds 

 and tribes, widely separated from each other. In the forest of 

 Bialowicza it has for its companion the wolverene, Ursus Gulo 

 Lin., and on the coast of Tenasserim the elephant and the rhino- 

 ceros. If now we recur to the notion of Pallas, who, struck 

 with the similarity of the bison of America and the aurochs of 

 Europe, and considering and imagining that this latter animal was 

 not to be found '.n Asia, affirmed that the European animal had 

 travelled from the West, we shall be led to conclude that there 

 are good grounds for questioning this opinion. As bearing on 

 these changes of the habitat of this urus, M. Baer makes some 

 reflections upon the variations which the geographic distribution 



