9Q History of Nature. [ BOOK VIII. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Of Scythian Animals, and those that are produced in the 

 North Parts. 



VERY few Animals are produced in Scythia, through the 

 Scarcity of Vegetation. Few likewise are in Germany, bor- 

 dering on it; but that Country possesseth some remark- 

 able kinds of Wild Cattle, as the Maned Bisons, 1 and the 

 Urus, of very great Strength and Swiftness, which ignorant 



1 Urus Bonasus. Much doubt has existed with regard to the 

 distinction between these three supposed species of oxen, which Cuvier 

 resolves into two, the Bos Bonasus of Linneus; Zubr, or European 

 Bison; and the Urus, mentioned in ancient times by Caesar. The 

 former animal once roamed over the woodland districts of Central 

 Europe, and in England was contemporary with the extinct races 

 of elephant and rhinoceros ; but it is now confined to the forest of 

 Bialowicza, in the government of Grodno, where it is carefully pro- 

 tected by the imperial government, whose strict enactments alone have 

 saved it from extirpation. In Owen's " History of British Fossil Mam- 

 malia," p. 491, &c. the remains of animals of this species are described 

 as those of the Bison Priscus; and they are found in " various newer ter- 

 tiary fresh -water deposits, especially in Kent and Essex, and along the 

 valley of the Thames." A young male and female were presented to the 

 Zoological Society of London, by the Emperor of Russia, in the year 

 1847. Aristotle calls it Bonasos, or Monassos, and describes it as living 

 in Pa3onia, the modern Bulgaria; but the distance to which, in terror, it 

 voids its excrements, is more moderately represented by him as four 

 fathoms ; which Pliny extends to no less than " tria jugera," or a space of 

 700 feet. The Urus, also a large species of wild ox, ranged the forests of 

 Germany and Belgium till a late period of the Roman empire, but is now 

 extinct. Its fossil remains, under the name of Bos Primigemus, are found 

 by Professor Owen in the same deposits and localities as those of the 

 Aurochs, or Bison. The Urus was almost equal in size to the Aurochs, 

 but differed from it precisely, as the Roman poets and historians have 

 indicated, by the greater length of its horns, and by the absence of a 

 copious mane. It appears to have had a nearer affinity to the domestic 

 ox, resembling it probably in the close nature of its hairy covering. 

 Cuvier, Professor Bell, and other naturalists, are disposed to believe that 

 our domestic cattle are the degenerate descendants of the Urus, but with 

 this opinion Professor Owen does not concur ; and they are more probably 

 to be referred to the wild cattle still preserved in the park at Shering- 

 ham. Wern. Club, 



