NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2 U * S. IX. Jan. 7. 'CO. 



ment of Fango at night, and which he mistook for 

 the enemy's horse, were doubtless a herd of this 

 species of antelopes, and not of buffaloes, as the 

 word /3ovl3d\i5es in Dio is erroneously rendered 

 in Smith's Biogr. Diet., art. Fango. 



The transfer of the name bubalus from an an- 

 telope to a wild ox, which had become common in 

 the time of Pliny, and was the established use in 

 later times, doubtless originated in the supposed 

 derivation from &ods or bos. This etymon is given 

 by Isidore Origin, (xii. 1.), though he designates 

 the bubalus as an animal found in Africa, which 

 cannot be tamed. AVhen Martial speaks of the 

 bubalus and bison being killed in the Roman cir- 

 cus, he refers to wild oxen ; it is certain that 

 wild animals of this genus were transported alive 

 to Italy, and slain in the combats of the amphi- 

 theatre. Pausanias states that the Preonian bulls 

 had been exhibited in his time at Rome ; bisons 

 are expressly mentioned by Dio as included in 

 the great spectacle of Severus ; and Martial even 

 speaks of bisons being harnessed to Celtic cars on 

 a similar occasion. 



Agathias states that when Theodebert, king of 

 the Franks, was hunting in his dominions (in 

 some German or Belgian forest) in 552 a.d. he 

 met with his death in the following manner : — 



" While he was on his way to the chase, lie was en- 

 countered hy a bull, of great size and extended horns ; 

 not of the tame kind, which has been broken to the 

 plough, but an inhabitant of the woods and mountains, 

 accustomed to attack everything which it meets. These 

 wild oxen are, I believe, called bubali ; and they abound 

 in this region: for the valleys are covered with trees, 

 the mountains are in a state of wildness, and the climate 

 is cold; circumstances in which this animal delights. 

 Theodebert, seeing one of these bulls rushing upon him 

 from a thicket, stood to receive the onset with bis lance ; 

 but the bull missed his aim, and was carried against a 

 tree, the force of the blow overthrew the tree, and Theo- 

 debert was killed by the fall of one of the branches." 

 (i. 4. ; compare Gibbon, c. 41. vol. v. p. 20G.) 



Gregory of Tours likewise records an event 

 which grew out of the anger of King Guntram at 

 a bubalus having been killed without his permis- 

 sion in a royal forest in the Vosges in 590 a.d. 

 (x. 10. ; Dom Bouquet, vol. ii. p. 369.). In the 

 sixth century, , therefore, wild oxen were pre- 

 served in forests for the hunting of the Prankish 

 kings. An adventure of Charlemagne near Aix- 

 la-Chapelle is described by the Monachus San- 

 gallensis (ii. c. 11. in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Ant. 

 vol. ii. p. 751.), who says that he was in the habit 

 of going into the forest to hunt the bison or the 

 urus ; and that on one occasion his boot was torn 

 in an encounter with a wild bull. 



The law of the Alamanni inflicts a penalty on 

 any person who kills a bison or a bubalus. " Si 

 quis bisontem, bubalum, vel cervum prugit (?), 

 furaverit aut occiderit, xii. sol. componat." ( Lex 

 Alamann. tit. 99. § 1.) A similar provision occurs 

 in the Law of the Bavarians : " De his canibus 



qui ursns vel bubalos, id est, majores feras, quod 

 svartzwild dicimus, persequuntur, si de his occi- 

 derit, cum siniili et vii. solid, componat." (Lex 

 Bajuvar. tit. 19. s. 7.) 



The Nibelungen Lied, a poem of the 13th cen- 

 tury, likewise commemorates the hunting of the 

 bison. Thus it is said of Gunther and Hagen : — 



" Mit ihren scharfen Spieren sie wollten jagen Schwein. 

 Baren und VVisende : was mochte Kulineres gesein ? " 

 V. 3(371. ed. v. der Hagen. 

 Again, in another place : — 



" Darnach schlug er schiere ein 'n Wisent und ein 'n 

 Elk, 

 Starke Ure viere und einen grimmen Schelk." 



V. 3753—4. 

 In which passage Schelk appears to denote a red 

 deer. 



A " wisentshorn " is mentioned v. 8018. Von 

 der Hagen, in the Glossary, derives ivisent from 

 bisen, bissen, to rage ; but the word is manifestly 

 a corruption of bison. 



PaulusDiaconus, indeed, states that bubali were 

 first introduced into Italy in 596 a.d., and caused 

 great astonishment to the inhabitants. " Tunc 

 primum caballi silvatici et bubali in Italiam delati, 

 Italiaj populis miracula fuerunt." (iv. 1. in 

 Murat. Script. Iter. It. vol. i. p. 457.) The bu- 

 balus here signified appears, however, to be the 

 buffalo, which still exists, in a state of domestica- 

 tion, in different parts of Italy, but particularly 

 in the Roman Campagna and the Pontine Marshes, 

 where these animals have long been preserved by 

 the government of the Popes. See Buffbn, Quad. 

 torn. v. p. 52. and the valuable communication 

 of Monsignor Caetani (whose family had long 

 reared the buffalo in the Pontine district), in- 

 serted by Buffbn in torn. x. p. 67. Buffbn re- 

 marks that the buffalo was unknown in ancient 

 Italy, and that the animal introduced in the sixth 

 century was of the Indian or African breed. 



The word bubalus, as appears from passages 

 cited by Ducange in v., also occurs in mediaeval 

 writers under the forms bufulus and bitflus ; and 

 hence have been derived the Italian bufalo or 

 bufolo, and the French buffle. This origin of the 

 modern Romance forms is pointed out by Monsig- 

 nor Caetani in Buffbn, who, in illustration of the 

 conversion of b\ntof, compares the Italian bifolco 

 from the Latin bidndcus. 



Instead of the Italian word buffalo, which is 

 now employed by naturalists, our ancestors used 

 the word buff, from the French buffle, to designate 

 the animal. They likewise used buff-skin and 

 buffleatker, for the skin and leather of the buffalo. 

 See the Etymologica of Junius and Skinner, Cot- 

 grave's French Dictionary, Todd and Richardson 

 in v. Johnson, in his Dictionary, has the follow- 

 ing explanation : — 



" Butf. n. s. a sort of leather prepared from the skin of 

 the buffalo; used for waistbelts, pouches, and military 

 accoutrements. 2. The skins of elks and oxen dressed in 



