THE EUROPEAN BISON 83 



presented alive to the Zoological Gardens in 1847 

 by the Czar of Russia. 



11. A pair of horns (said to be those of a young 

 bison cow) are in the same museum. 



1 2. Bison presented to the Gottingen Museum by 

 the Czar. 



13. Specimen presented to the Copenhagen 

 Museum. 



14. Mounted group representing a fight between 

 bison and panther ; set up under the supervision of 

 Gustav Radde, and now in the Tiflis Museum. 



Every naturalist will hope that the European 

 bison will yet be preserved for many years. The 

 wild animals of the Caucasus perhaps stand the best 

 chance ; for although every care may be taken of the 

 Lithuanian herd there is always the danger that 

 their numbers may sink so low (by an outbreak of 

 rinderpest for instance) as to actually snuff out. 

 Preponderance of male offspring in the herd would 

 herald disaster ; then in absence of fresh blood the 

 successive generations would become malformed, 

 with twisted crumpled horns and weak stamina 

 Fuit bonassus : exit the bison. 



A curious method of preserving at least some strain 

 of bison blood has been adopted of late years, working 

 with the A merican species. The " buffalo" breeds 

 with domestic cattle ; so freely does it intermix that 

 many of these hybrid animals can hardly be distin- 

 guished from pure bison. Although such creatures 



