MAMMALIA—OX. 389 
down, that they are almost pendent. It even appears, that we must divide 
this first kind of bisons, or hunched oxen, into two secondary kinds; the 
one very large, and the other very small. Both have soft hair, and a hunch 
on the oack. This hunch does not depend on the conformation of the spine, 
nor on the bones of the shoulder; it is nothing but an excrescence, a kind 
of wen, a piece of tender flesh, as good to eat as the tongue of an ox. The 
wens of some oxen weigh about forty or fifty pounds; others have them 
much smaller. Some of these oxen have also prodigious horns for their 
size. There is one in the French king’s cabinet, which is three feet and 
a half in length, and seven inches in diameter at the base. Many travellers 
affirm, they have seen them of a capacity suflicient to contain fifteen and 
even twenty pints of water. 
On the contrary, all the northern countries of Africa and Asia, and Europe 
éntirely, comprehending even the adjacent islands, to the Azores, are only 
inhabited by oxen without a hunch, who derive their origin from the 
aurochs. 
Every part of South America is inhabited by oxen without hunches, 
which the Spaniards, and other Europeans, have successively transported. 
These oxen are multiplied, and are only become smaller in these countries. 
Thus the wild and the tame ox, the European, the Asian, the American, 
and the African ox, the bonasus, the aurochs, the bison, and the zebu, are 
all animals of one and the same species; who, according to the climates, 
food, and different usage they have met with, have undergone ail the varia- 
tions we have before explained. The ox, as the most useful animal, is also 
the most universally dispersed. He appears ancient in every climate, tame 
among civilized nations, and wild in desert or unpolished countries. He 
supports himself by his own strength when in a state of nature, and has 
never lost the qualities which are useful to the service of man. The young 
wild calves, which are taken from their mothers in India and Africa, have, 
in a short time, become as tractable as those which are the issue of the 
tame kind, and this natural conformity is another striking proof of the 
identity of the species. 
The characters by which the strongly marked group of animals thus 
associated together, are distinguished from the neighboring tribes, are, like 
most of those which serve to subdivide the great family of the ruminants, 
of a very subordinate description. Their horns are common to both sexes, 
simple in their form, curved outwards at the base and upwards towards the 
pot; and supported internally, by long processes arising from the skull, 
having cavities within them communicating with the frontal sinuses, which 
are largely developed. Their muzzle is of large size; the skin along 
the middle of the neck and chest forms a pendulous dewlap of greater or 
less extent; and the general robustness of their make) is strikingly con 
trasted with the lightness and elegance of form of some of the nearly 
related groups. 
