Zoological Society. 149 
excited in me the desire to draw up a treatise on the Bison ; for my 
own experience embraces curious facts and free from all error. 
I have turned my attention particularly to refute by experience 
the erroneous opinion, accredited by all the writers who have treated 
on this subject, namely that the calf of the Bison cannot be suckled by 
our domestic cow. This fable has been repeated even in the work 
of an esteemed writer of our times, the Baron de Brinvers, who rely- 
ing upon the recital of another writer, the learned Gilibert, asserts 
that two female Bison calves, caught in the forest of Bialowieza, 
seven weeks old, constantly refused the teats of a domestic cow; 
that they consented, indeed, to suck a goat, but as soon as they had 
had enough, they repelled their nurse with disdain, and grew furious 
whenever they were put to a domestic cow. M. de Brinvers had 
not himself the possibility of verifying this fact; and he cites tra- 
ditions, communicated to him by the old inhabitants of the environs ; 
for if any one of the forest guards, or the peasants who inhabit the 
forest, had even met a Bison calf, parted by any accident from its 
mother, he would rather have left it, than seized and nursed it, in 
contravention of the severe law, which prohibits the capture or kill- 
ing of a Bison. It was therefore only the supreme order of His 
Majesty the Emperor, emanating from the desire expressed by Her 
Majesty Queen Victoria to possess in her Zoological Garden two living 
Bisons, which has enabled me to rectify the error above mentioned. 
For as many attempts had already proved, that Bisons captured full- 
grown and in their wild state could never bear the captivity and 
especially the transport, and would infallibly perish, I proposed to 
catch two young calves, and to suckle them at the houses of the 
forest guards. His Excellence the Minister of the Domains of the 
Empire, Comte de Kisseleff, having approved of this project, and 
ordered it to be put in execution, I went without delay to the forest of 
Bialowieza. It was the 20th of July, 1846, at daybreak, and assisted 
by 300 beaters and 80 keepers of that forest, armed with fowling- 
pieces, charged only with powder, that we set out on the trace of a 
troop of Bisons explored during the night. 
The day was superb and the sky serene; there was not a breath 
of wind, and nothing interrupted the calm of nature, so imposing 
under the majestic dome of the primitive forest..... The 300 
beaters, aided by 50 keepers, had surrounded in the most profound 
silence the solitary valley in which were the troop of Bisons. Ac- 
companied by 30 keepers of determination and merit, we penetrated, 
step by step, into the surrounded enclosure, advancing with the 
greatest caution, and, so to speak, holding our breath. Arrived at 
the limit which bordered the valley, we enjoyed one of the most in- 
teresting pictures! The troop of Bisons was lying down on the slope 
of a hill; ruminating, in the most perfect security, whilst the calves 
gamboled around the troop, amused themselves with attacking one 
another, striking the ground with their agile feet, and throwing up 
the sand into the air: then they ran off to their respective mothers, 
rubbed themselves against them, licked them, and then returned to 
their gambols. But at the first sound of the horn the picture changed 
im the twinkling of an eye! Tlie troop, as if struck by a magic wand, 
