OXEN. 191 



trees are stripped of their foliage and bark as high up as the animals can reach, 

 while smaller ones are broken down or uprooted. 



In spite of their size and bulk, bison are active animals, and can both trot and 

 gallop with considerable speed. In galloping the head is carried close to the 

 ground and the tail high in the air. Generally they are shy and retiring in 

 disposition, more especially when young ; but in the Lithuanian forest an old bull 

 has been known to take possession of a road and challenge all comers. During the 

 breeding-season, which takes place in August or the early part of September, the 

 bison are in the best condition. At such seasons the bulls engage in terrific 

 conflicts, which occasionally end fatally, for the leadership of the herd. These 

 combats are at first entered upon somewhat playfully, but soon take place in 

 earnest, when scenes like the one depicted in our coloured illustration may be 

 witnessed. The old solitary bulls then return to the herds, and after having either 

 driven away or killed their younger rivals, once more resume the leadership. Not 

 only are the younger bulls sometimes killed in these conflicts, but the same fate 

 occasionally overtakes the cows. At the conclusion of the breeding-season the old 

 bulls revert to their solitary life. The calves are born in May or the early part of 

 June, and are dropped in the most secluded parts of the forest. The cows apparently 

 do not calve more frequently than once in three years, so that the rate of increase 

 is necessarily slow. In defending their offspring against the attacks of bears and 

 wolves, the females display great courage, and seldom allow them to be carried off 

 except at the sacrifice of their own lives. Occasionally when full-grown bulls get 

 half -buried in deep snow they are pulled down by wolves. 



THE AMERICAN BISON (Bos americanus). 



As the gaur in India has usurped the name of bison, while the European bison 

 has been frequently called the aurochs, so 'the American bison in its native country 

 is almost invariably misnamed the buffalo. 



The American bison, which is now, unfortunately, practically exterminated, 

 differs from its European cousin not only in certain structural features, but likewise 

 in habits, being essentially an inhabitant of the open plains, where it formerly 

 congregated in vast herds, comprising thousands of individuals, and living entirely 

 on grass. According to Mr. Hornaday, to whom we are indebted for a full account 

 of the species, the American bison differs from the European kind in the following 

 features. Firstly, the mass of hair on the head, neck, and fore-quarters is much 

 longer and more luxuriant, and thus gives the animal the appearance of possessing 

 .greater size than is really the case. As a matter of fact, the American species is 

 lower, and has a smaller pelvis and less powerful hind-quarters than its European 

 cousin, although its body is, on the whole, more massively built. Moreover, the 

 horns are shorter and more curved, while the front of the head is more convex, 

 and the sockets of the eyes less tubular. The tail is shorter and less bushy. An 

 unusually fine bull American bison measured 5 feet 8 inches at the withers, but 

 the average is considerably below this. 



Mr. Hornaday regards this species as the finest and most striking in appearance 

 of all the oxen, and remarks that " the magnificent dark-brown frontlet and beard, 



