THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
of Snow” is full of yak riding; and General Macintyre groans over many a 
bone-racking experience. Huc tells us that he saw whole droves with loads 
on their backs sliding down frozen slopes on their haunches. The 
flesh, he says, is excellent, the milk of the cow delicious, and the butter 
made from it above all praise; but ‘‘the cows are so difficult to milk that it 
is impossible to keep them still; and not a drop is to be had from them with- 
out giving them their calves to lick during the operation.” From the hides 
clothing, tent covers, and harness are made; and from the hair is twisted 
a rope of remarkable strength and elasticity. 
From this animal we pass readily to the bisons, the last of 
the wild cattle. These are the forest oxen of Europe and the 
“buffalo” of our plains. 
The word “‘bison’’ has been greatly misused. It is an English corrup- 
tion of wisent, the proper German name of the big, humped, shaggy- 
browed oxen which people came carelessly to call ‘‘aurochs,’’ after the true 
aurochs had disappeared; but when the English went to India, and met 
there a formidable wild ox (the gaur), they called it “bison,” while, with 
heedless inconsistency, they dubbed a true bison, when they found it in 
America, the “buffalo.” 
Bisons differ from other oxen mainly in having over the 
withers a hump formed by spines rising from the backbone to 
give attachment to the great muscles needed to hold 
up the head, and this gives a droop to the hind- 
quarters; they also have fourteen instead of thirteen ribs. The 
forehead is convex and protected by a thick mop of hair, the 
service of which seems to be to act as a cushion in the tremen- 
dous pushing matches which the bulls wage with each other, in 
fencing for a chance to make play with their short and power- 
ful horns,against which the masses of long hair on the shoulders 
are a still further guard. The more peaceable cows are far less 
shaggy and of smaller size. This description applies in the 
main to both European and American bisons, which are prob- 
ably mere local races descended from an identical stock. The 
color of both is dark red brown, much faded in late summer. 
Bison. 
Three fossil species were recognized by Dr. J. A. Allen in his classic 
monograph.” One (Kison priscus) is a very large, long-horned species, 
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