American Big Game in its Haunts 



ter known form by superior size, a wider forehead, 

 longer, more slender and incurved horns, and by a 

 thicker and softer coat, which is also darker in 

 color. Now, it is an interesting fact that a fos- 

 sil bison skull from the lower Pliocene of India re- 

 sembles the present European species, and in later 

 geological times very similar bisons closely allied to 

 each other, if not identical, inhabited all northern 

 regions, including America. These were large ani- 

 mals with wide skulls, and there is little doubt that 

 from this circumpolar form came both of the 

 bisons now inhabiting Europe and America. Out 

 of some half dozen fossil bison which have been 

 described from America, none earlier than the 

 latest Tertiary, Bison latifrons from the Pleisto- 

 cene seems likely to have been the immediate ances- 

 tor of recent American species, and as the one skull 

 of the woodland bison which has been examined 

 resembles both latifrons and the European species 

 more than the plains species does, it seems probable 

 that these two more nearly represent the primitive 

 bison, of which the former inhabitant of the 

 prairies is a more modified descendant. 



The process of elimination has at last led to this 

 outline definition of a bison, but among the ungu- 

 lates we have passed over, there are certain others 

 which concern us because they are American. 



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