4 HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



the 1 .ithuanian forests, and perhaps in those of Moldavia, Wai- 

 lachia, and the neighborhood of the Caucasus, is a distinct species 

 which man has never subdued ; nor do we thinJc that any one 

 who takes the trouble to consider the evidence on which Cuvier's 

 conclusion was founded will be of a different opinion. Following 

 out this subject with his usual industry and ability, that great 

 naturalist goes on to state (Ossemcns Fossil es] that if Europe 

 possessed a Ifrus, a Thur of the Poles, different from the Bison 

 or the Aurochs of the Germans, it is only in its remains that the 

 species can be traced ; such remains are found, in the skulls of a 

 species of ox different from the aurochs, in the superficial beds of 

 certain districts. This Cuvier thinks must be the true Urus of 

 the ancients, the original of our domestic ox, the stock perhaps 

 whence our wild cattle descended ; while the aurochs of the pre- 

 sent day is nothing more than the Bison .or Bonasus of the 

 indents, a species which has never been brought under the yoke. 



This ancient species is fast following its extinct congener, the 

 Urus. Pallas observes, that it is remarkable that the aurochs 

 does not exist in any of the vast forests of Russia and Northern 

 Asia, whence (if it had penetrated therein) hardly any thing could 

 have eradicated it. As late as the reign of Charlemagne it was 

 not rare in Germany, but the range of the species is now nearly 

 confined to the mountainous country between the Caspian and 

 Black Seas. 



The American Bison has many points of similarity with the 

 Jlurochs. In both we have the huge head, and the lengthened 

 pinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae for the attachment of the 

 biawny muscles that support and wield it. In both we have the 

 CMiical hump between the shoulders in consequence, and the 

 shaggy mane in all seasons ; and each presents a model of brute 

 force, formed to push and throw down. 



Before we describe the habits of the American bison, the modes 

 of hunting it. and the uses to which the several parts of the anima. 

 are put, it may be well to give some idea of the vast wildernesses 

 where it roams in unrestrained freedom. We know not How to 

 ronvey this idea better than in the words of Washington Irving 



