152 THE BUFFALO, &c. 



regions of Africa and the Indies, and was not 

 Ufanfported and naturalized in Italy till about 

 the feventh century. The moderns have im- 

 properly applied to him the name bubahis, which, 

 indeed, denotes an African animal, but very dif- 

 ferent from the buffalo, as might be mown from 

 many pafTages of ancient authors. If the buba- 

 lus were to be referred to a particular genus, he 

 mould rather belong to that of the antilope than 

 to that of the ox. Belon, having feen at Cairo 

 a final 1 ox with a bunch on its back, which dif- 

 fered from the buffalo and common ox, imagined 

 that it might be the bubal us of the ancients. 

 But, if he had carefully compared the characters 

 given by the ancients to the bubalus, with thofe 

 of this fmall ox, he would have difcovered his 

 error. Befides, we are enabled to fpeak of it 

 with certainty; for we have feen it alive; and, 

 after comparing the defcription we have given of 

 it with that-of Belon, we cannot hefitate in pro- 

 nouncing it to be the fame animal. It was ex- 

 hibited at the fair of Paris in the year 1752, 

 under the name of zehu, which we have adopt- 

 ed to denote this animal, becaufe it is a parti- 

 cular race of the ox, and not a fpecies of the 

 buffalo or bubalus. 



Ariltotle, 



§ Petit boeuf d'Afrique ; Obf.de Belon, p. 118. where there 

 is a figure of it. 



Guabex in Barbary, according to Marmol ; Bekker el J¥afl? s 

 r hat i3 wild o.v, among the Arabs; Sha-v's travels. 



