378 CLASS MAMMALIA 



are the most untraceable, and perhaps altogether untame- 

 able. All the genus have a musky smell, but none, not 

 even the Bison, is so strongly impregnated with it as the 

 former genus. (Ovibos.) 



The lengthened body and short legs common to the 

 greater part of the genus, indicate that they feed princi- 

 pally on herbs. In a wild state they prefer woody valleys, 

 acclivities, and flats : one species only seeks mountains. 

 Originally, a great geographical distribution seems to have 

 been assigned to the groups of which the genus is com- 

 posed. The Bubaline sub-genus occupied the warm and 

 tropical regions of the earth ; the Bisontine, the elevated, 

 and the Taurine, the lower grounds of the temperate lati- 

 tudes of the northern hemisphere, quite round the globe 

 In the deep investigations of Baron Cuvier on the fossil re- 

 mains of this genus, undeniable proofs are adduced of the 

 existence of the two last named, among the ruins of the 

 earliest mammiferae of the present superficial system of the 

 earth ; probably even of an anterior period, for their re- 

 mains are found with those of extinct species of the Ele- 

 phant and Rhinoceros, but in smaller quantity than those of 

 deer. In more recent strata, such principally as the peat 

 beds, others are found more evidently allied to the present 

 domestic species ; none, however, of the Buffalo of Africa 

 or of India have been discovered. 



The Bubaline Group. 



The name Bubalis, is asserted to have been transferred 

 from the Antilope Bubalis of Authors, before described in 

 our genus Damalis, to the animals of the present group, 

 during the sixth century of the Roman empire. It is true, 

 as Buffbn maintains, that Aristotle, Pliny, and Oppian did 

 not know the Buffalo by the name of Bubalis ; but it cannot 

 be denied that in the age of Martial, this name was vaguely 

 applied even to the Urus, and, consequently, that the vulgar 



