Bovine Animals of Scandinavia. 421 
tislaf V. killed, at a hunt in Hinter-Pomerania about the year 
1364, a “Wysant,”’ which was stronger and larger than an Urus. 
In East Prussia, between Liebau and Tilsit, the Bison was found 
as late as the last century; and formerly it was found in the 
whole of Lithuania, even in the neighbourhood of the city of 
Wilna (Hichwald, loc. cit.). In the forest of Bialowieser in 
Lithuania, Augustus IIT. king of Poland held a great hunt on 
the 27th Sept. 1752, im which were killed forty-two Bisons (!) 
and thirteen Elks. In ancient times the Bison was also found 
in the north of Greece, Macedoma and Thrace. In Aristotle’s 
“* Bonasos,” which is found in Peeonia, that part of Thrace now 
called Bulgaria, we easily recognise the Bison (Cuv. /. c. p. 111), 
which formerly was also found in Moldavia; and it is probable 
that the. story of the giant-hke ox, which Philip of Macedon 
killed at the foot of Mount Oreli, and whose hide he hung up 
together with the horns in the court of the temple of Hercules, 
belonged to this same species. 
The Bison is now found on the wooded northern side of Mount 
Caucasus, where it appears to exist in large numbers, and 
is an object of the chase to the Tscherkesser and Abschaser, in 
whose language it 1s called Dombei or Adompe. In Moldavia 
and in the Carpathian mountains it is no longer found. Now that 
it is no longer to be met with in Hast Prussia, it is more and 
more confined to the forests of Lithuania. At the present time 
it is only found in one large forest, Bialowesha, where in a wild 
state it is enclosed and preserved by the command of the Km- 
peror of Russia. As this colossal animal formerly lived also in 
the forests of southern Scania, it may not be uninteresting to 
know the nature of the place where it now lives and what 
manner of life it there leads*. 
Bialowesha-forest, which lies on a large level expanse, is sur- 
rounded by plains, comprising 5 Swedish miles in length and 
4-45 in breadth. The forest consists chiefly of fir and pine 
trees interspersed with birch. Grassy pastures are there not 
unfrequent ; but in many places the ground is: swampy, and al- 
most a twelfth part consists of reedy fens. Here the Elk chiefly 
takes up its abode ; but these fens are avoided by the Bisons, who 
on the contrary seek high land with aromatic grass, also sharp 
and bitter herbs ; they likewise gnaw off the young bark of trees ; 
in the spring they consume the young leaves of the lime, poplar, 
elm, and willow, but not the leaves of birch or oak, and least of 
all the leaves of the pine. On the other hand they devour some 
sorts of mosses: they always avoid places without trees or that 
are cultivated; they never go into fields, but keep in thickly 
* What I have here communicated is mostly taken from Eichwald’s Nat. 
Hist. p. 241. 
