ANIMALS. 533 



miK'b from each other in the several parts of the world where 

 they are found.* The wild ones of this kind, as with us, are 

 much larger than the tame. Some have horns, and some are 

 without any; some have them depressed, and some raised in 



• Among the bisons are found indications of an ancient and colossal species 

 existing at one time in Europe and Northern Asia, and even in America, 

 attested by the repeated discovery of enormous skulls in the diluvian strata 

 of the earth, on the vegetable mould, and even beneath them, among the 

 remains of the mastadon and rhinoceros. But there seem to be fossil re- 

 mains of two different epochs ; the first or deepest belonging to the colossal, 

 and the second perhaps to the existing aurochs, or, to speak more correctly, 

 bison. In order to establish this group upon a clear foundation, and separate 

 it from the urus and domestic species with which it has long been con- 

 founded, it is necessary to give the luminous view which baron Cuvier 

 furnishes on the subject. He says " the forehead of the ox is tiat and even 

 slightly concave ; that of the aurochs (bison) is arched, though somewhat 

 less than in the buffalo : it is in the ox nearly equal in height and breadth, 

 taking the base between the orbits; in the aurochs, measured iu the same 

 place, the breadth greatly surpasses the height, in the proportion of three to 

 two : the horns of the ox are attached to the extremity of the highest salient 

 line of the head ; that which separates the forehead from the occiput : in the 

 aurochs this line is two inches behind the root of the horns: the plane of tlie 

 occiput forms an acute angle with the forehead in the ox; that angle is ob- 

 tuse in the aurochs : finally, that plane of the occiput quadrangular in the 

 ox, is semicircular in the aurochs." 



These characters are constant in all the varieties deriving from the ox. 

 including those with hunched backs : besides, the bison has fourteen pair of 

 ribs, while the ox, in common with most ruminants, numbers only thirteen 

 pair : the legs are more slender than those of the ox or buffalo, and the 

 tongue is blue, while the ox has it flesh colour. Mr Gilibert who reared 

 an individual, naming the species by its true appellation, represents the hair 

 of the female bison as soft, placed in the skin at an obtuse angle : of two sort*. 

 one long and the other soft ; while those of the cow are of one kind, hard and 

 close to the hide. Those of the male bison are very lon^r under the jaw and 

 throat, and upon the shoulders and upper arms ; also upon the hack, but les9 

 prominent : the tail descends to the houghs, and is provided with abui>danc« 

 of long black hair ; the summit of the head is covered with a bushy and 

 spreading space of long hairs, strongly impregnated with musk; and the 

 horns are short, lateral, black, and pointed : the eyes large, round, and full 

 The back part of the body is covered with shorter hair, which also pre. 

 dominates in summer on the shoulders. The hide i.s double in thickness to 

 that of-the ox, and the species shows a decided aversion to domestic cattle. 



The name aurod-.s, applied to the bison by the Germans, is evidently the 

 origin of the Latin urus ; but baron Cuvier, fnllowing up with his usual 

 re.search the observations of Herberstein, establishes beyond a doubt, that 

 tJie irue urus may still have existed iu some parts of Massovia by the name 

 ot Thur ill the time of the last-mentioned author, but that it is now extinct 

 in Europe and Western Asia, and its name transferred to the bison of the 

 ancients, which the Pules at this dnv ■^till diitinijuiiih by the ai'pcllatioii i>f 



