200 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



condition after recovery from the fatigues of the journey. They are a 

 male and female of the European Bison (Bison europmis), also known 

 as " Wisent," a near relative of the American Bison, but not, as is 

 occasionally stated, Aurochs. The Aurochs, or Ur, with the exception 

 of those preserved in a single Polish game-park, had already died out 

 in the seventeenth century. The Austrian Ambassador, Freiherr von 

 Herberstein (died 1566), had yet seen both Aurochs and Wisent living 

 side by side in Polish menageries, and in his work, ' Rerum Mosco- 

 viticarum Commentarii,' has left us pictures of both species. Later 

 the name " Aurochs " was applied to the Wisent of Lithuania. In the 

 latter half of the last century this mistake was corrected, and it was 

 made evident that the Aurochs and Wisent were quite distinct species 

 of Wild Oson. A semi-wild descendant of the extinct Aurochs may 

 be the park cattle of the North of England, which have been carefully 

 preserved for six hundred years by the rich territorial families in the 

 enclosed forest parks of Chartly, Chillingham, and Cadzon Forest. 

 The Wisent also is in process of extinction. It only remains in a wild 

 state, strictly protected by game-laws, in a vast State-farmed district, 

 covered with beech and pine, on theBielaja and theLaba in the Caucasus. 

 In these high valleys it lives at an altitude of between four thousand 

 and eight thousand feet, and only comes lower down in the winter. 

 For many hundreds of years the Polish kings and wealthy voevodas 

 preserved them in large parks at Warsaw, Zamosk, and Ostrolenka, 

 all of which were broken up in the time of the wars. A single such 

 Wisent preserve still remains, in Russian Lithuania, in the woodlands 

 of Bialovitza. Here the Wisent lives in herds of about twenty-five 

 strong in a semi-wild state, carefully guarded by foresters. There are 

 perhaps one thousand five hundred Bison, here and in the Caucasus, 

 that prolong their contemplative existence, and in spite of all pro- 

 tection steadily dwindle. At the commencement of the eighteenth 

 century the Wisent was still fairly numerous in the border forests 

 between Poland and Prussia. There it was attacked by a contagious 

 disorder, communicated through contact with tame cattle, which soon 

 put an end to its continuance. Only in the larger zoological gardens, 

 as in Berlin, do the European and American Bisons thrive satis- 

 factorily. Specially deserving of mention, however, is the Wisent 

 herd of Prince Pless in the Mezerzitzer Forest in Upper Silesia, 

 where some Wisents received from the Bialovitza Forest have already 

 increased to seventy head. — Westminster Gazette. 



