SECTION II 



OLD WORLD TYPES 



THE EUROPEAN BISON 



[Bos [Biso//'\ bonasus) 



(Plate III. Fig. i) 



Few names in zoology have been more misused than that of bison, 

 which properly belongs exclusively to the species whose habitat is now 

 restricted to the Caucasus and a certain district in Lithuania, although it is 

 only in the former area that the animal is met with in a truly wild con- 

 dition. Formerly, however, the bison, or wisent as it was called in certain 

 districts, appears to have been distributed over the greater part ot Europe, 

 where it was a contemporary of the wild ox, or aurochs [Bos taiirus pnm,- 

 gcn'ms). When that species became extinct as a wild animal, the name 

 aurochs seems to have become transferred to the bison, so that the latter 

 title has fallen to a great extent into disuse, so far as the species to which 

 it properly belongs is concerned. It is, however, still commonly, and 

 correctly, applied to the American representative of the group in popular 

 English literature, although in America itself that animal is almost in- 

 variably miscalled buffalo. There is, however, no justification tor calling 

 the Indian gaur a bison, although this term is commonly used tor the 



