CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 



485 



THE AMERICAS BISON. 



"The other calves took no nourishment on the first day of their captivity; but the next, the one 

 of three months of age began to suck one of the cows, and appeared very gay. His companions 

 in captivity, except one of fifteen months old, began by first drinking some milk from the hand, 

 then they drank greedily from a pail, and as soon as it was empty they began to lick each other. 

 In a short time they lost all their savage manners, which gave place to an extreme vivacity and 

 petulcnce. When they were taken out of their stable to go into the large barn-yard, the rapidity 

 and lightness of their movements were like those of deer. They frolicked with the domestic 

 calves around them, fought with them, and, though apparently much stronger, appeared to yield 

 through complaisance. The male aurochs of fifteen months, kept a long time his savage and soli- 

 tary manners ; he became angry at the sight of a man, shook his head, brandished his tail, and 

 menaced with his horns. After two months' captivity, however, he became tame and attached 

 himself to the peasant who fed him. He then had more liberty given to him." 



Two of the animals thus taken, were sent to London, and placed in the Zoological Gardens, as 

 already stated, but, unfortunately, they died soon after. 



The Americax Bison, Bos Americanus, the only bovine animal indigenous to America, and 

 confined exclusively to North America, has many points of similarity with the Aurochs. In both 

 we have the huge head and the lengthened spinal process of the dorsal vertebra? for the attach- 

 ment of the brawny muscles that support and wield it. In both, we have the conical hump be- 

 tween the shoulders in consequence, and the shaggy mane in all seasons ; and each presents a 

 model of brute force, formed to push and throw down. When full-grown the American animal is 

 fully the size of our oxen, and weighs from 1,600 to 2,200 pounds. "When fat it yields one hundred 

 ,and fifty pounds of tallow. The head is very large, and carried low; the eyes are .small, black, 

 and piercing; the horns are short, small, sharp, set far apart, — for the forehead is very broad, — 

 and directed outward and backward, so as to be nearly erect, with a slight curve toward the out- 

 ward-pointing tips. The hump on the shoulder is not a mere lump of fatty secretion, like that of 

 the zebu, but consists, exclusive of a deposit of fat which varies much in quantity, of the strong 



