NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 117 



temperate climates ; excessive heat, or excessive cold, being equally hurtful to him. 

 Besides, this species, so abundant over all Europe, is not found in the equinoctial regions," 

 &c. In another place, after a long chain of ingenious and learned deduction, he arrives 

 at this conclusion : " Thus the wild and domestic ox of Europe, Asia, Africa, and 

 America, the bonasus, the aurochs, the bison, and the zebu, are animals of the .same spe- 

 cies, which, according to the differences of climate, of food, and of treatment, have 

 undergone the various changes above described." (Vol. 6. p. 188.) Pennant is equally 

 decided : " The bison and aurochs of Europe is certainly the same species with the 

 American ox. The difference consists in the former being less shaggy, and the hair being 

 neither so soft nor so woolly, nor the hind parts so weak. Both European and American 

 kinds scent of musk. In ancient times they were found in different parts of the old 

 world, but went under different names ; the bonasus of Aristotle, the urus of Caesar, the 

 bos ferus of Strabo, the bison of Pliny, and the biston of Oppian, so called from its 

 being found among the Bistoues, a people of Thrace. According to these authorities, it 

 was found in their days in Media, and in Pseonia, a province of Macedonia; among the 

 Alps, and in the great Hercyniau forest, which extended from Germany even into Sar- 

 matia. In later days a white species was a native of the Scottish mountains; it is now 

 extinct in its savage state ; but the offspring, sufficiently wild, is still to be seen in the 

 parks of Drumlanrig, in Scotland, and of Chillingham castle, in Northumberland. 



In these times it is found in very few places in a state of nature: it is, as far as we 

 know, an inhabitant, at present only of the forests of Lithuania and among the Carpathian 

 mountains within the extent of the great Hercynian wood, its ancient haunts, and in Asia, 

 among the vast mountains of Caucasus. Arctic Zoology, vol. 3. 



According to these opinion's, the Linnaean name of our buffalo, or American wild ox, 

 is bos bison, or bos bonasus; and that of the Indian buffalo, is bos bubalus. The latter 

 originated in Egypt and India, and is very numerous in all the warm climates of the old 

 woi Id, especially in marshy countries, and in the neighbourhood of rivers. Water and a 

 moist soil seem to be still more necessary to them than the warmth of climate. It was 

 transported and naturalized in Italy about the end of the seventh century, and is now in 

 France. It is used for drawing, and is directed and restrained by means of a ring passed 

 through its nose. Two buffaloes yoked, or rather chained, to a carriage, draw as much 

 as four strong horses, as they carry their neck and head low, and the whole weight of 

 their body is employed in drawing, and their mass much surpasses that of a labouring 

 horse. They are used for ploughing throughout Italy, are hideous animals, with very coarse 

 black hair, and have a singular swinging motion of the head, in walking. The milk is not 

 80 good as that of the common cow, but is much more plentiful. A kind of cheese is 



