306 On the Origin and Natural History 



animals, that he appears to have confounded the Bison and 

 the musk-ox, although Charlevoix, and other travellers to 

 whom he had access, had previously described the difference 

 in their external characters, as well as in their haunts and 

 habits. In regard to their geographical distribution, he ad- 

 vances the dwelling-places of the Bison almost to the Pole 

 itself, whereas, in reality, the musk-ox only is found there ; 

 and then forgetting what he had just before stated, he locates 

 the race of Aurochs in the frigid zone, and restricts the Bison 

 to the temperate; while he draws the general conclusion, that 

 all domestic cattle without humps are descended from the 

 former, and all humped cattle from the latter. 



Pallas, in the 2nd volume of the Petersburgh Transactions 

 (Act. Petrop.J, enters into a detailed statement of facts re- 

 garding the natural history of the aurochs, the bison, the 

 musk-ox, and the yacks, or grunting-ox of Pennant and Dr. 

 Shaw, — thus admitting, in the first place, the existence of 

 four distinct species. In this enumeration he errs, in so far 

 as he confounds the European and American bisons as one 

 and the same. He refutes the mistake committed by Buffon 

 in supposing that the aurochs of Europe consisted of two va- 

 rieties, the urus and the bison. The last named author was 

 probably drawn into error by following the sentiments of some 

 ancfent writers, for example Pliny, and by the old German 

 word bisem, signifying the musky odour of the aurochs, and no 

 doubt latinized in the term bison. But while Pallas freely 

 admitted that neither the aurochs nor the bison existed 

 throughout the whole extent of Northern or Middle Asia, he 

 nevertheless persisted with Buffon, that the aurochs and the 

 true American species were identical, and were merely altered 

 in their respective localities, by the difference of climatic 

 influences. He asserts the probability of their having passed 

 from Europe to America, when these continents were connected 

 by vast and continuous tracts of land, of which the shattered 

 and sunken debris are still represented by the snow-covered 

 mountains of Iceland, and the isles of Shetland and Feroe. 

 He regards the aurochs as the real and original source of our 

 domestic breeds of cattle. The result of his inquiries indicates, 

 that according to his views our domestic cattle and the aurochs 

 and bison are the same, while the musk-ox, the grunting-ox 

 (yacks), and the Asiatic and African buffaloes, are distinct 

 from those just mentioned, and from each other. 



It appears that, antecedent to the time of Cuvier, the larger 

 kinds of horned cattle were considered as amounting to five in 

 number, so far as regarded living species. In the Dictionnaire 

 des Sciences Naturcl/es, Cuvier distinguishes eight of them. 

 He separates the aurochs from the bison, and establishes two 

 additional species, the arnee of Asia, and the domestic bull, 

 the source of which he traces, not to the aurochs, of which the 



