74 HISTORY OF THE BISON. 



and they take their range where they will, heedless of ordi- 

 nary fences. 



In a natural history point of view these animals are 

 important as being the only species of the ox genus,' the 

 existence of which on this continent, at any period of 

 its history has been fully authenticated. There have 

 no doubt been reports of individuals of much larger size, 

 and supposed to belong to another species, which have 

 been seen on the Stony Mountains. But the species which 

 are known differ very much in size : and there is besides 

 some difficulty of judging of the magnitudes of two animals 

 when the one is seen on the mountain, or on an elevation of 

 any kind, and the other on a plain. Deer when seen on a 

 hill-top, projected against the sky, seem giants, and their 

 horns to be the leafless boughs of large trees, but if we fol- 

 low the same herd till they are in a hollow and look down 

 upon them, they seem the miniatures of their former appear 

 ance. Even the horns of the extinct species seem a little 

 doubtful, for it does not very clearly appear, from any col- 

 lateral evidence of a peculiar state of vegetation, that North 

 America has undergone any climatal change, which would 

 have rendered the extinction of any species of ruminant 

 animals necessary ; at least there is no evidence of any 

 necessity of the kind, unless we are to suppose that some 

 violent catastrophe of nature has intervened ; and the posi- 

 bility of anything which has disturbed the solid strata is 

 precluded by the situation in which the horns are found, 

 which are always such that no catastrophe greater than a 

 mere surface one, such as an inundation arising from the 

 bursting of a lake, or an alteration of the course of a river, 

 can be admitted, indeed can possibly have taken place 

 since those horns formed part of the bodies of living 

 animals. 



Besides, when this country was first discovered by Euro- 

 peans, it was completely stocked with the existing species, 



