154 THE OX TRIBE. 



NOTE ON THE AMERICAN BISON. 



IT was Cuvier, I believe, who first made the statement, 

 that the American Bison is furnished with fifteen pairs of 

 ribs. In this particular he has been implicitly followed 

 by every subsequent writer on the subject. Not being 

 able to refer to a skeleton, and, moreover, never suspecting 

 any inaccuracy in the statement, I followed the received 

 account. But since this work has gone to press, I have 

 had the opportunity of examining two skeletons, by which 

 I find that 



The American Bison has only FOURTEEN pairs of ribs. 



I have, therefore, in the " Table of the Number of 

 Vertebrae," (see p. 152,) set this species down as possessing 

 only that number. 



Of the two skeletons referred to (both of which are now 

 in the British Museum), one is from a female Bison, some 

 years a living resident in the Zoological Gardens ; and the 

 other is from a male, late in the possession of the Earl of 

 Derby, at Knowsley, in Lancashire. 



A corroborative circumstance (amounting, indeed, to a 

 complete proof of the accuracy of these observations,) is 

 presented by the fact, that, in both the cases the number 

 of lumbar vertebrae is precisely FIVE ; thus making the true 

 vertebras to consist of nineteen, which Professor Owen* 

 has shown to be the invariable number possessed by all 

 ruminants. 



* See, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Professor Owen's 

 ' Account of his Dissection of the Aurochs.' 



