European Bison 121 



the same number. The wild boars, judging by their frequent rootings, 

 must be very numerous. Red deer were not formerly found in the forest, 

 but have been introduced. I could not find out that there was any 

 satisfactory basis for Mr. Neverli's calculation of the numbers of the herd 

 of bisons. Judging by the number of tracks which I saw, I am inclined 

 to be sceptical of it. Every naturalist will be anxious to know whether 

 the herd is diminishing or not. Mr. Neverli is of opinion that the herd 

 was formerly more numerous, but such estimates may be based on some 

 calculation even less authoritative than those of the present time. The 

 privilege of hunting in this forest was confined for centuries to the Kings 

 of Poland exclusively." 



At the last official count which was taken of the herd in the forest, 

 namely, in 1892, the number was given as 275-> i'^ addition to which 

 there were loi head in the adjacent forest of Swisslotch, and 15 in 

 the Zoological Gardens at Bielowitza. 



For accounts of bison-stalking in the Caucasus the reader may be 

 referred to Prince Demidoff's Hunting 'Trips in the Caucasus^ and also to 

 Mr. St. George Littledale's article in the volumes on Big Game Shooting in 

 the " Badminton Library." 



The European bison is one of the animals that has not been exhibited 

 to the public in the menagerie of the London Zoological Society for many 

 years; the last example being one purchased in the autumn oi 1868, 

 which had been bred three years previously in the garden of the Zoological 

 Society of Amsterdam. Recently, however, the Duke of Bedford obtained 

 a bull and two cows from the Lithuanian herd, all three ot which were 

 living in an enclosure in the park at Woburn Abbey at the end of 1900. 

 One of the cows unfortunately died at the commencement of the following 

 year; its skin is now mounted in the Museum at Edinburgh. 



