499 



BISON. 



trees not allowing tne rays of the sun to act upon the 

 Around. This forest was the abode of many wild 

 animals, and of the bison ammiir the rest. 



Common Bison. 



The bison was thus, though abundant, only occa- 

 sionally seen by those of the ancients who have left 

 their observations or their annals on record ; and 

 therefore we need not. be surprised that the accounts 

 which they have left of it are both vague and contra- 

 dictory, or that both they and the writers of the 

 middle ages, and also some of the readers, following 

 their example, should have confounded it with the 

 urus another species of the genus, which is supposed 

 to be the original stock of the domestic ox. Both 

 animals appear to have inhabited nearly the same 

 localities, or if, as is probable, the bison was the more 

 northerly dweller of the two, both met on the con- 

 fines of their wild pastures, the bison more in the 

 depth of the forest, and the urus more in the glades 

 and openings. As a forest animal, the bison of course 

 subsisted in great part upon leaves, but on the leaves 

 of deciduous trees only ; Tor the quantity of turpen- 

 tine in the leaves of pines causes them to be rejected 

 by all the genus. Hence, in those countries to the 

 south-east of the Baltic, which are still covered with 

 pine forests, continuously or in patches, there are no 

 bisons ; the few which yet remain in Europe, being 

 found near the north-east of the Carpathian Moun- 

 tains, or in the more thinly inhabited parts of Russia, 

 which are rich enough, and far enough to the south 

 to be covered with deciduous trees. In western 

 Asia, between the northern plains and the central 

 straits, they are said to be more numerous ; but they 

 are not found on the steppes of Siberia, or in the 

 pine forests toward the north of that country. The 

 same appears to be the case with the American spe- 

 cies, though there are differences of habit, and even 

 differences of structure between that and the bison of 

 the old continent. The bison then is not found in 

 the pine forests of the north, nor in the dreary coun- 

 try which extends from the great lakes to the polar 

 sea. There, as in the northern extremity of the 

 eastern continent, the only ruminant animals are deer, 

 which being fleeter-footed, are better able to range 

 these wild places than even bisons ; and capable of 



supporting- themselves upon lie-hen?, which may bd 

 considered as the verge of the food of herbivorous 

 mammalia. 



As the bison was seen only occasional^", and as it 

 is a shy and wary animal when it can escape, as well 

 as a bold and daring one when it cannot, it has 

 received many names ; and the accounts of it have 

 always been, and in part continue, mixtures of fact 

 and Cable, mixed up so intimately that it is not easy 

 to separate the one from the other. 



This animal is called Tscbcr by the natives of that 

 part of Po'and (now territorially of Russia) where it. 

 is found, and it is styled Aurach and Wizend by the 

 Germans. The radical part of the word Aurach, 

 though differing a little in the terminal part there 

 being a tendency in the -vernacular use of imported 

 words to naturalise them, as it were, by affixing a 

 native termination, appears to be very common in 

 all the northern tongues seems to mean a shaggy 

 creature, may even mean a creature of the imagina- 

 tion, and has been indiscriminately applied at dif- 

 ferent times to the bear, the lion, the bison, and the 

 wild bull ; so that etymology, generally a very unsafe 

 guide, is not to be depended on in endeavouring to 

 trace the progressive history of the bison. 



As now found, it is certainly the largest, not only 

 of the native ruminantia of Europe, but of all the 

 land mammalia. The height of full grown specimens at 

 the shoulder is at least six feet ; but it is lower at the 

 crupper ; the height at the shoulder is in part made 

 up of the very much produced processes of the inter- 

 scapular part of the spine. These are so much elevated 

 that when the animal is lean they are prominent, and 

 their ends have a sort of pectinated appearance ; but 

 when it is in better condition the parts get full and 

 rounded, and these bones are concealed. This pro- 

 duction of the shoulder cannot be considered as a 

 hump ; but there is no doubt that it. in part answers 

 the same purpose ; namely, that of a magazine against 

 the season of severity, a season which from the nature 

 of their haunts and their food, must have been severe 

 upon the bisons, as the time which the deciduous 

 forests were leafless must, in consequence of the 

 greater cold, have been longer there than it is now. 



These accumulations of matter for the supply of 

 the animal, at those times when there is little of the 

 ordinary external food to be obtained by the mouth, 

 are a very beautiful provision of nature, for preserv- 

 ing the herbivorous mammalia of seasonal climates, 

 during that portion of the year when, but for this 

 provision, many of them must perish. In southern 

 latitudes this provision, which appears on some of 

 the ox tribe as well as the camels, in the form of a 

 hump, is as a provision against the season of drought. 

 Among the oxen of the middle latitudes, where the 

 grass or other herbage is more perennial than at 

 either extremity of the quadrant, and which feed 

 more on the open meadows, and therefore can range 

 to greater distances as the seasons render it necessary, 

 the accumulation is less ; and the portion of it which/ 

 is localised is principally in the dewlap under the 

 sternum. 



But for the bison which is a forest animal, and has its 

 natural pasture bare, or nearly so, during the winter, 

 (although at that season these animals gnaw the 

 twigs and buds,) a winter store is necessary, and yet 

 in the march of the animal among the branches and 

 underwood, a loose hump or large dewlap would be 

 inconvenient and liable to injury. The accumulation 



