494 



BISON. 



04 the animal, not merely upon the glands, which 

 immediately secrete, or otherwise produce the hair or 

 wool, but upon the general system of the animal. 

 The hair or wool is an ulterior production, and we 

 know not how many parts of the animal may have 

 to be changed before the production of it is begun. 

 There must be an apparatus formed, or, at all events, 

 developed, capable of elaborating the new substance 

 out of the general disposable mass of the animal, and 

 this, which is a new action, cannot be supposed to 

 take place in a diminished state of the general action 

 of the system. Upon the same principle we must 

 suppose, that such an adaptation as the double coat 

 upon the anterior part of the bison is not a mere 

 climatal one, produced in the course of time, but 

 original, and, as such, specifically characteristic of the 

 animal. It is true, that the stiff hair on the fore part 

 of the female is not so long as that on the male, but 

 still the female has the two distinct kinds on that 

 part of her body ; and there are physiological reasons, 

 as well as practical instances, which lead us to con- 

 clude, that every additional production of the skin, 

 whether of feathers or otherwise, which appears as a 

 natural character of any species of animal, though it 

 usually appears on the male only, and that merely at 

 certain seasons, as, for instance, at puberty in the 

 mammalia, and at pairing time in birds, is, notwith- 

 standing, actually existent, either in the rudiment of 

 the production, or of that by which it is produced, in 

 all perfect animals of the race, whether male or 

 female, and from the very moment of their organisa- 

 tion. Nor is it difficult to see why, physiologically, 

 those apparent additions, which are thus in reality 

 only developments, should appear more frequently 

 and conspicuously in the male than in the female. 

 The female system has a heavier duty to perform, in 

 the gestation and suckling of the young ; and to these 

 grand purposes, upon which depends the stability of 

 the race, the whole energy and working of the female 

 system. must be previously directed. But still there 

 is not merely a similarity, but an absolute sameness of 

 species in the two, and be it bison, or any other species, 

 both male and female must coincide in being perfect 

 to the one species, as each is perfect to its own sex. 



Thus male or female, and whether this double coat 

 be more or less developed, we are to consider it as a 

 primary and inseparable character of this group of 

 animals, and as it is a character which none of the 

 arctic mammalia, which range and are exposed to the 

 rivers, are without ; for the extinct northern elephant, 

 as was proved by the Siberian specimen, which was 

 thawed out of a mass of drift ice toward the close 

 of the eighteenth century, had it on still more conspi- 

 cuously than the bison. According to the accounts, 

 the accuracy of which there is no reason to doubt, 

 the bristles of this elephant's mane were of sufficient 

 power to break the fall of an avalanche of snow, at 

 least such an avalanche as could be shaken from the 

 leaves of the giant trees, which, from the remains, 

 appear to have then existed, while this giant animal 

 was tugging at them at its food j and, if we are to 

 judge from the deposits, those giant elephants were 

 contemporaries, or at least the immediate prede- 

 cessors, of the gigantic bisons and stags which are now 

 found only in similar graves, though, as none of these 

 latter have been cast on the shores embalmed in ice, 

 it is probable that they have belonged to a less 

 aquatic period of that portion of the globe. 



Thus, though the bison is not only a mere remnant 



in the existing zoology of Europe, and one which 

 appears to be fast dying out, as not being in accord- 

 ance with the present state of the country, or its 

 surface, its climates, and its other productions, yet it 

 is an animal of much and somewhat melancholy 

 interest. It is, as it were, a voice from times which 

 have gone by, the shadow of a system of things which 

 is now no more in those parts of the world, and which, 

 from the progress which has been made since notice 

 began to be taken of it, appears to have no sign, in 

 the present state of things, from which its return can 

 be predicted, or even hoped for. Where it is now 

 found, is not in the extreme of the bleak cold, where 

 vegetation is stunted, but rather where, while the 

 earth is rich and the summer warm, the winter srts 

 in quickly with heavy falls of snow. Therefore, it 

 does not follow, that when the bison was a general 

 inhabitant of central Europe, the whole year, or evi-u 

 the average temperature of the year, was colder than 

 it is now, but merely that the summer and the winter 

 were much more strongly contrasted, and that the 

 transition from the one to the other was much more 

 sudden. Nor is it at all improbable, that, for the 

 natural and indigenous productions of the country, 

 whether animal or vegetable, that may have been a 

 much more favourable state of the seasons than we 

 have at present. This is rendered probable by many 

 evidences which we find in this country : the bogs 

 are full of the boles and branches of oaks and pines 

 in very many places of the country, where even the 

 heath itself is languishing and giving place to mosses 

 and lichens ; and we find the bones of large animals 

 in the soil, in situations where, for miles round, not 

 even a field-mouse can find food and cover for its nest 

 on the surface. But though the bison is one of the 

 few remaining animals which would enable us to 

 embark on this tempting ocean of the past, the chart 

 is imperfect, and we have neither star nor compass 

 should we quit the shore. 



AMERICAN BISON (Bos Americanw). This species, 

 though in some places it now appears to be wearing 

 out faster than the arrow of the red man and the 

 plough of the white are piercing its flanks and in- 

 vading its territory, is still far more numerous than 

 the former species is in any part of the eastern con- 

 tinent, and in many places as numerous as we can 

 well imagine a ruminating animal of large size to be 

 In general the two species have a great resemblance 

 to each other in shape, in colour, and in size, but 

 there are some structural differences, and also some 

 differences of habit. The specific difference, which 

 is most to be depended upon, is the same as that 

 which distinguishes the eastern bison as a species, 

 from any possible variety of the stock of the common 

 ox. 



We have stated above, that even those external 

 appendages, which appear chiefly on one of the sexes, 

 and then only occasionally, and as it were for orna- 

 ment, are all parts originally appertaining to and 

 characteristic of the species, aud, as such, may be 

 developed in either sex, if the circumstances which 

 prevent these developments be removed. We are, 

 farther, to consider those developments as the perfect 

 model of the species, beyond which nothing can vary, 

 and that all deviations from it are stoppings short, 

 and their causes hindrances. 



Now, if such be the case with appendages which 

 grow from the skin, much more must it be the case 

 with the essential parts of the body, and especially 



