8 THE A.MKIMCAX IJISONS. 



iodon batkygnatkus Owen, Cat Fob. Mam. etc. Mus. Roy. CoL Sorg., l!>7, 1845 

 niarlanm americanus <>\vi v. I'm. . Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1846, 9G ; Journ. Acad. Nat Sd. Phila., I, 18, 



pi. vi, 1847 ; Amcr Journ. Sri. & Arts 2d Ser., III. 125, 1847. 

 Great Indian Buffalo, Peals, Pbilos. Mag . i 80S, 325 : Hist Disq. on the Mammoth, 84, 1803. 

 Aurochs, Crvin:. Ann. du Mus. d'Hist Nat . XII. 882, pi. \v\iv. fi<;. 2, 1808 ; Ossein. Fos., IV, 50, pi. iii, 



fig. 2. 1812; 2d. Ed., 1824; 3d Ed., 143, pi. \ii, fig 2, 1825; 4th Ed., VI, 287, pi. xxii, fig. 2, 1835 



(the American specimen only). 

 Great Fossil Ox, sp. latifrons, Godmam, Am, Nat. IIi>t., Ill, 243, pi., 1828. 



. CARPENTER, Amer. Journ. Sci. Sc Arts, 2d Ser., I, 245, figs. 1, 2, 18-16; 3d Ser., X, p. 386, 



1875. 

 ?Ox, Couper, Proc. Acad. Nat Sci. Phila., 1842, 217. 

 Bmuf fossilt a comes disposees presqw horizontalemenl, etc., Facias, Ann. du Mus., H, 190, 1808 ; Essaia 



de Geologie, L 329, pi. xvii (only the reference to the American specimen). 



The present species of Bison seems to be well distinguished from all others 

 of the genus, either living or extinct, by its gigantic size, far exceeding 

 even the Bison prisons of the Old World. ( )nr knowledge of it rests at pres- 

 ent on portions of three skulls. Other remains have been attributed to it, 

 but most of them apparently improperly. For a long time the species was 

 known only from the original specimen first made known by Peale. and sub- 

 sequently redescribed by Harlan and Leidy, under the names respectively of 

 LVs latifrons and Bison latifrons. The second specimen was found in Texas 

 and described by Dr. Carpenter in 1846, simply as the skull of an extinct 

 ox. Dr. Leidy subsequently referred it to the Bison latifrons. The third 

 specimen, consisting of a pair of horn-COres, found together but disconnected, 

 was recently dug up in Adams County, Ohio, and was first noticed in 

 the American Journal of Science (November, L875), as the remains of a 

 gigantic extinct ox. Dr. Leidy has described and figured at different times 

 several molar teeth that seem to have belonged to the same species, hut 

 other remains latterly doubtfully attributed to the same form belong to a 

 smaller species. 



Dr. Leidy's very excellent description of the first specimen is as follows: 

 "The Bison latifrons is established upon the fragment of cranium before re- 

 ferred to. presented by Dr. Samuel Brown to the American Philosophical 

 Society. The specimen consists of the hinder portion of the cranium with 

 :i fragment fourteen inches in length of the left horn-core, ami indicates a 

 species as large ;i> the existing arnee, or buffalo (Bubalus hiffebu Gray), of 

 India and Java. The sutures of the remaining bones of the specimen are 

 anchylosed; but the positions of the frontal and fronto-parietal sutures 

 are yet distinguishable as slightly elevated zigzag lines. The form of 



