THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 217. — January, 1895. 



ON the GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION of the EUROPEAN 



AND CAUCASIAN BISON.* 



By Bernard Langkavel (of Hamburg). 



The narrow limits of this article preclude any mention of the 

 Bison in prehistoric times. Such information concerning it as 

 history affords has been already collected by Brehm in his 

 1 Tierleben.' In remote historic times it was to be found not 

 only in Central Europe, but in Spain, throughout Pannonia, and 

 in Thrace, where the Cossack-like Pseonian hunters were trans- 

 formed into centaurs by Greek travellers' tales, t 



Frequent wars, especially the devastating Thirty-Years War, 

 drove these animals out of Germany further north and east ; their 

 numbers diminished, the cows being often barren for three or 

 four years, t 



In Pomerania the last one was shot by Duke Wratislaw V. 

 about the middle of the 14th century, and one of its horns was 

 used first as a drinking-cup, and then as a reliquary in the 

 Cathedral of Cammin. § 



When Henry IV. of England visited Prussia in 1390-91, a 

 Bison and two Bears were presented to him (' Preussisches 



* Translated from the German in ' Der Zoologische Garten ' (Frankfurt- 

 a-M.), 1894, pp. 13—17, 43—49. 



f Gaudry, 'Verfahren der Saugetiere in Europa,' p. 169; Keller, ' Tiere 

 des Klass. Altertums,' pp. 53, 56. 



| ' Neue Deutsche Jagd-Zeitung,' v. p. 307 ; Giinther, ' Der Harz,' p. 582 ; 

 1 Zoologische Garten,' vol. ix. p. 64 ; xviii. p. 229 ; xxi. p. 219. 



§ ' Zoologische Garten,' viii. p. 307 ; xiv. p. 113 ; ' Zeitschrift der Gesell- 

 schaft fiir Erdkunde, Berlin,' xix. p. 402. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX. — JAN. 1895. B 



