TLLUSTUATIONS (5). MOUNTAIN-CHAIN. 41 



herds, and known as bison parks* The American bison, 

 called by the Mexicans Cibolo, is killed chiefly on account of 

 the tongue, which is regarded as a special delicacy. This 

 animal is not a mere variety of the aurochs of the old world ; 

 although, like other species of animals, as for instance the 

 elk (Cervus alces) and the reindeer (Cervus tarandus], no less 

 than the stunted inhabitants of the polar regions, it may be 

 regarded as common to the northern portions of all continents, 

 and as affording a proof of their former long existing connec- 

 tion. The Mexicans apply to the European ox the Aztec term. 

 quaquahue, or horned animal, from quaqualmitl, a horn. The 

 huge ox-horns which have been found in ancient Mexican 

 buildings near Cuernavaca, south-west of the capital of 

 Mexico, appear to me to belong to the bison. The Canadian 

 bison can be used for agricultural labour, and will breed with 

 the European cattle, although it is uncertain whether the hybrid 

 thus engendered is capable of propagating its species. Albert 

 Gallatin, who, before his appearance in Europe as a distin- 

 guished diplomatist, had acquired by personal observation a 

 considerable amount of information regarding the uncultivated 

 parts of the United States, assures us that the fruitfulness of 

 the mixed breed of the American buffalo and European cattle is 

 an undoubted fact: " the mixed breed," he writes, " was quite 

 common fifty years ago in some of the north-western counties 

 of Virginia, and the cows, the issue of that mixture, propa- 

 gated like all others." " I do not remember," he further adds, 

 " that full-grown buffaloes were tamed ; but dogs would at that 

 time occasionally bring in the young bison-calves, which were 

 reared and bred with European cows. At Monongahela all 

 the cattle for a long time were of this mixed breed. It was 

 said, however, that the cows yielded but little milk." The 

 favourite food of the buffalo is the Tripsacum dactyloid?s 

 (known as buffalo-grass in North Carolina) and a hitherto 

 undescribed species of clover allied to the Trifolium repens, 

 and designated by Barton as Trifolium bisomcum. 



I have elsewheref drawn attention to the fact, that ac- 

 cording to a passage of the trustworthy GomaraJ, there 



* Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das inner e Nord-Amerilca 

 bd. i., 1839, s. 443. 



t See Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 674 (Bohn's edition). 

 J Historia general de las Indias, cap. 214. 



