THE AMERICAN BISONS. 21 



same time regarding all the bisons, recent and fossil, as belonging to the 

 same species! 



Lilljeborg, in 1874, also very strangely referred all the bisons, both living 

 and extinct, to the Bos bonasus of Linnaeus, ignoring alike the prominent osteo- 

 loo-ical as well as external features that distinguish the aurochs from the 

 American bison, and the enormous differences that distinguish the Bison lati- 

 frons Leidy, not only from both the B. americanus and B. bonasus, but also 

 from the other extinct species, B. priscus and B. antiquus, — a thing he could 

 not have clone had he worked from specimens or duly weighed the published 

 evidence. 



BISON ANTIQUUS Leidy. 

 The Smaller Extinct American Bison. 



Bos urns Buckt.axd, Beechey's Toy. to the Pacific, II, 539, pi. iii, fig. 1 - 7, 1831. 



Bison antiquus Leidy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1852, 117; 1854, 210; 1867, 85; Mem. Ext. Spec. 



Amer. Ox, 11, pi. ii, fig. 1, 1852 (Smithsonian Contributions, Vol. III). 

 Bison priscus ? Richardson, Zool. Voy. of Herald, 33, 139, pis. vi, figs. 5, 6, vii, x, figs. 1-6, xiii, fig. 



3, 1852-54 (female). 

 Bison priscus Leidy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, 210; Ext. Mam. of North America, 371, 18G9 



(Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., new Ser., VII). 

 Bison crassicornis Richardson, Zool. Voy. of Herald, 40, 139, pis. ix, xi, fig. 6, xii, figs. 1 -4, xiii, figs. 



1, 2, xv, figs. 1 -4, 1852-54 (male). — Leidy, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, 210. 

 Bison latifrons Leidy, Mem. Ext. Spec. Amer. Ox (in part); Extinct Mam. N. Amer., 371, 1869 (in 



part) ; Extinct Vertebrate Fauna, 253 (in part), pi. xxviii, figs. 4-7, 1873. 

 ? Fossil Ox, Perkins, Amer. Journ. Sci , XLII, 137, 1842. 

 Bison, Buffalo, Whitney, Geol. Surv. California, Geol , I, 252, 1865. 



The Bison antiquus of Dr. Leidy was first described from a fragment of horn- 

 core, having a small portion of the frontal bone attached, found at Big-bone 

 Lick, Kentucky. It was at first hesitatingly regarded as a distinct species, 

 Dr. Leidy having suspicions that it might prove to be the female of Bison 

 latifrons, and in his later notices of the group he has referred it to that 

 species. The fragment indicates, however, an animal of about the size of the 

 male of the smaller extinct bison, whose remains have thus far been found 

 mainly in California and Alaska, and is probably identical with the species de- 

 scribed by Dr. Richardson under the name Bison crassicornis, based on remains 

 from the ice-cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay. Of late years all these names have 

 been regarded by Dr. Leidy — the only author who has really given the 



