THE BUFFALO, &c. 153 



Ariftotle, when treating of oxen, 'mentions 

 not the common ox, but only remarks, that, a- 

 mong the Arachotas in India, there are wild 

 oxen, which differ from the domeftic kind as 

 much as the wild boar differs from the common 

 hog. But, in another place, as quoted above 

 in the notes, he gives a defcription of a wild ox 

 in Poeonia, a province bordering on Macedonia, 

 which he calls bonafus. Thus the common ox 

 and the bonafus are the only animals of this kind 

 mentioned by Ariftotle ; and, what is fingular, 

 the bonafus, though fully defcribed by this great 

 phiiofopher, was unknown to the Greek and 

 Latin naturalifts who wrote after him ; for they 

 have all copied him verbatim on this fuhject: 

 So that, at prefent, we only know the name bo- 

 7iufus, without being able to diftinguiih the ani- 

 mal to which it ought to be applied. If we 

 coniider, however, that Ariftotle, when fpeaking 

 of the wild oxen of temperate climates, mentions 

 the bonafus only, and that, on the contrary, the 

 Greeks and Latins of after ages take no notice of 

 the bonafus, but point out thefe wild oxen under 

 the appellations of urus and hfon, we will be in- 

 duced to think that the bonaius mud be either 

 the one or the other of thefe animals; and, in- 

 deed, by comparing what Ariftotle has laid of 

 the bonafus, with what we know concerning the 

 bifon, it is probable that thefe two names denote 

 the fame animal. The urus is firil mentioned 

 by Julius Caefarj Pliny and Paufanias are alfo 



the 



