6 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



summer, being able to climb as well as an Elephant. Travelling 

 Russians who passed through the country left it unnoticed ; na}% 

 even denied its existence, or considered it extinct, having found 

 dozens of its horns amongst those preserved in old churches of 

 Swanetia, which are now regarded as treasure-houses, and are 

 under the care of the state. Many travellers, however, have con- 

 fused the horns of the Bison with those of JEgoceros pallasii.* 



In Caucasia, as in Europe, the horns were used as drinking- 

 vessels. At a feast given by a Caucasian noble in honour of 

 General von Rosen, the table was graced with seventy Bison- 

 horns richly set in silver. Nehring, by the way, states (' Neue 

 Deutsche Jagd-Zeitung,' vii. p. 370) that a single horn holds 

 barely 4 litres of liquor, much less than is contained by a horn 

 of Bos primigenius. From a skin obtained by General von Rosen, 

 both Brandt (Bull. Soc. Nat. Moscow, 1866) and Von Baer have 

 judged the Caucasian Bison to be specifically identical withthe 

 Lithuanian animal, t 



The theory advanced by Ussow in the ' Proceedings of the 

 Imperial Russian Acclimatisation Society,' 1865, and by Koch 

 (' Reisen durch Russland,' ii. p. 70), that the Bisons of Caucasia 

 and Lithuania are specifically distinct, is therefore no longer 

 tenable. 



In the * Verhandlungen der Gesselschaft fur Erdkunde,' 

 Berlin, 1881, p. 38, we find a statement to the effect that Bison 

 are still to be found "in some parts" of the above-mentioned 

 mountains. Let us examine this more closely. Von Thielmann, 

 in 1877 (' Streiizuge im Kaukasus,' p. 108), located their original 

 home in the watershed of the river Kuban, whence they probably 

 wandered into Abkasia; this accounts for their being known there 

 as dombai, dombe, or adompe. Gustav Radde (Zool. Garten, 

 1891, p. 3^0) does not confirm the statement tbat the Bison was 

 smaller here than in Lithuania ; and that indefatigable explorer 

 had good opportunities for observing the beast which inhabited 



- ■ See ' Ausland,' 1888, p. 803, and Oliver Wardrop, Proc. Geogr. Soc. 

 London, 1888, p. 807. 



f ' Neue Deutsche Jagd-Zeitung,' xiii. pp. 55, 116 ; ' Zoologische Garten,' 

 vii. p. 350 ; ix. p. 210 ; Von Middendorf, Keise IV. ii. p. 1048 ; Petzholdt, 

 • L)er Kaukasus,' p. 104. An amusing mistake occurs in a French translation 

 of Brandt's paper, wherein his statement that the animal was found in herds 

 i/// Rudebi) is rendered " dans une localite nomme liudeln " 



