176 THE OX TRIBE. 



MR. SWAINSON'S 

 TRANSCENDENTAL ATTEMPT AT CLASSIFICATION. 



The following very laboured attempt to arrange the 

 various species of Genus Bos into groups, according to 

 the Quinary or Circular System of M'Leay, is from 

 the pen of Mr. Swainson the precise and fastidious 

 Swainson who, from the number and boldness of his 

 hypothetical views in every department of Zoology, may 

 be truly regarded as the beau-ideal of a speculative 

 naturalist one of those, in short, so well described by 

 Swift, " whose chief art in division hath been to grow 

 fond of some proper mystical number, which their imagi- 

 nations have rendered sacred to a degree, that they force 

 common reason to find room for it in every part of 

 nature ; reducing, including, and adjusting, every genus 

 and species within that compass, by coupling some against 

 their wills, and banishing others at any rate." 



After describing the various members of the Bovine 

 Family according to the Procrustean method of stretch- 

 ing and chopping, Mr. Swainson continues in his pecu- 

 liarly dogmatic style " The types of form of the Genus 

 Bos, above enumerated, we shall now demonstrate to be a 

 natural group. We have seen that the first represented 

 by the .Bos Scoticus, or Scotch Wild Ox, is an untameable 

 savage race, which preserves, even in the domestication 

 of a park, all that fierceness which the ancient writers 

 attributed to the Wild Bulls of Britain and of the 

 European Continent. Let those who imagine that the 



