BISON. 



403 



in H is, accordingly, embedded on the produced pro- 

 cesses of this part of the spine, l>y whk-h means it 

 has a firm hold, and neither loads the animal us a 

 weight, nor is so liable to injury as if it were an 

 attached accumulation. 



This provision not, only adds to the height of the 

 shoulder, but gives the animal a greater appeai 

 of strength in that part than it possesses in reality. 

 Still the bison is both a tall and a powerful animal. 

 Its length in full-grown specimens is upwards of ten 

 feet ; but as its spine is much more elastic than that 

 of the common ox, and it stands with the spine a 

 little curved and the feet nearer each other, it does 

 not appear to be so large as it really is. 



The head is broad ; the forehead rounded ; the 

 horns far apart from each other, short, stout and 

 slightly bent upwards. Their form, and the manner 

 of their attachment to the head, give them much 

 greater firmness and power than the horns of the 

 ordinary ox. These in the wild animal in a state of 

 nature, and without any regard to the endless varie- 

 ties of form that have been produced by domestica- 

 tion, are nearer to each other at their liases, spread 

 wider at the tips, and inserted behind the arch of the 

 top of the head. On this account, the horns of a 

 common ox never can act with their greatest strength, 

 and be at the same time urged on by the force and 

 momentum of the arch of the body. It is rather in 

 the forehead than in the horn that the weapon of 

 the common ox lies for this sort of combat ; and the 

 horn, which can be used with its greatest effect only 

 when the head is oblique and the neck twisted, a 

 position in whicn, if the whole body were to be im- 

 pinged and meet an obstacle, dislocation or other 

 serious injury to the neck would be the result. On 

 the other hand, from the set of the horn, if the com- 

 mon ox were to spring and deliver the weight of the 

 body upon that with the neck in a safe position the 

 horn would be subject to a cross strain, and as likely 

 to be broken as the neck would be to be injured in 

 the former case. 



It is different with the bison. When its neck is 

 brought into that position which has its greatest 

 strength, namely, when the line in which the centre 

 of gravity of the body is situated, nearly coincides 

 witii the axis of it, the horn is placed on the anterior 

 and lateral part of the convex skull as on the crown 

 of an arch ; and in this ease, the axis of the whole 

 body passes between the two horns, and parallel to 

 the direction of them, so that the animal can deliver 

 its whole momentum from a rush or a bound either 

 upon both horns, or upon one of them, with full 

 effect, and without injury to itself. This structure 

 renders the bison a very formidable animal, and one 

 which no beast of prey inhabiting the same regions 

 would venture singly to attack, unless with the advan- 

 tage of an ambuscade ; while the length and fleetness 

 of its limbs enable it to range much more freely in 

 interrupted pastures than the shorter legged and 

 heavier members of the genus. 



The forehead, from the horns is, in this species, 

 covered with short hair only, all of nearly equal 

 length and texture ; but the rest of the anterior hali 

 of the body is furnished with two coats, the one con- 

 sisting of long, hard, highly polished, and rather stiff 

 hairs, such as are found upon other animals which 

 from the nature of their places of resort, have to 

 shake off the rain or snow, especially the latter, from 

 their covering. The under, or warm clothing, is more 



of a woolly texture ; and it is greyish or whitish, 

 while the points of the longer hair is blackish-brown, 

 jut fades i;:to a rusty tinge in the course of the win- 

 ter. The produced hair is very abundant on the 

 hin, throat, and breast, forming a sort of beard upon 

 the first. In the male, it is about a foot in length ; 

 and as it is very thick and matted, and partially con- 

 nects the base of the horns and shades the eye. 

 which is otherwise very dark as well as full and 

 clear, it adds considerably to the formidable appear- 

 ance of the animal. The hinder part of the body, as 

 well as the fore legs from the knees downward, are 

 covered with smooth hair, all of one consistency, like 

 that on the face. The tail is rather short, containing 

 a few ragged hairs throughout its length, and having 

 a little brush at the end. This, a.s well as the short 

 hair on the posterior half of the body and the legs, is 

 of a blackish-brown colour. 



This single coat, where it is found has the texture 

 of the produced hair on the forepart of the body, and 

 not that of the woolly hair, so that the wool is to be 

 considered as the peculiar additional clothing which 

 adapts the animal to the cold climates. This agrees 

 with the analogy of other animals, whether mammalia 

 or birds. In the latter the clothing for arctic climates 

 is not so much an additional production of down. 

 Pigs, 'in cold climates, have the bristles produced 

 something in this manner ; and they have an under 

 and woolly coat among the roots of these ; and even 

 the dogs which ventured on the arctic shore of Ame- 

 rica along with our adventurers, got in the course or' 

 the winter, not only a much longer upper coat than 

 is natural to the species in Britain, but also wool 

 among the roots in supplement. 



The case of the dogs undergoing this change in so 

 short a time must not, however, be considered as 

 wholly the result of natural causes, for the animals 

 were not so well tempered to the weather as their 

 coats were. Notwithstanding their increased hair 

 and their fur, they lay so closely and habitually by 

 the fire, that their coats were burned into holes, 

 extending more than half way to the skin, without 

 their being at all sensible of it. 



This fact proves two things ; first, that those coats 

 of animals which are thus formed are very perfect 

 non-conductors of heat, because the natural heat of 

 the animal must have as little tendency to pass off to 

 the cold air as the heat of the fire had to pass inward 

 through the coat to the body ; secondly, this addition 

 to his coat was not a natural production of the dog ; 

 that is, not one which he would have acquired in the 

 same short time, if he had been carried to the same 

 region and turned adrift to his own resources. He 

 had the protection of the ship, and the warmth of the 

 fire, and he was fed. Thus it was in consequence of 

 human protection that he was kept alive to have this 

 produced coat ; without that protection he would 

 have perished before the coat was obtained ; and as 

 it was not what we may call a natural protection, he 

 did not, as is done by the arctic foxes and the arctic 

 wolves, go forth armed in it, and hunt for and find 

 his food in defiance of the cold ; he cowered spiritless, 

 and almost in a state of torpor, close by the fire, and 

 lay there till the coat, which should, had it been the 

 production of his own unassisted nature, have com- 

 pletely protected him without fire at all, was burnt 

 half through by the heat. 



It is not upon the hair immediately and directly 

 that the cold acts ; it is upon the more sentient parts 



