NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 119 



It seems, then, that there are three kinds of the animal denominated 60s, all suscep- 

 tible of domestication, and all highly useful to man. 



1. The bos Indicus or bubalus, or Asiatic and African buffalo. 



2. The bos bison, or American buffalo. 



3. The bos taurus, or domestic ox. The two last, probably, varieties of the same 

 species, and, at all events, specifically distinct from the first. 



NOTE Q. 



Pennant, Forster, Buffon, and indeed all the European naturalists, are positive, that 

 our moose is the elk. " The name, says Pennant, is derived from musu, which, in the 

 Algonquin language, signifies that animal. The English used to call it the black moose, 

 to distinguish it from the stag, which they named the gray moose. The French call it 

 orignal." On comparing the animals called moose and elk, in this country, we find, at 

 once, a specific difference in their size, their colour, their horns, and their residence, and 

 a great difference in every other respect, except their being of the genus cervus. We 

 are then certain, that the moose is not the animal denominated by us, the elk ; but the 

 question still remains open, whether the moose is not the elk, or cervus alces, of Europe, 

 described by Linnaeus as having palmate horns, with short or no beams, and carunculate 

 throat. They certainly assimilate in many respects. 



Another question still remains for decision ; whether the animal, which we call the elk, 

 is the elk of Europe. I think there can be no hesitation in saying, that it is not. Charle- 

 voix says, that the Canadian stag is precisely the same as that of France, and Buffon says, 

 that it is only a variety of the European stag, or hart ; that it differs from it in length 

 of horn only, and in the direction of the antlers, which is sometimes not straight, as in the 

 common stag, but turned backward, so that the end of each points to the stem of the 

 horns. Buffon, vol. 4. 



Catesby gives the following account of these animals, which appears to be very judi- 

 cious and correct. " Tiie moose, or elk, alee maxima Americana nigra, is a native of 

 New England, and the more northern parts of North America, and is rarely seen south of 

 latitude forty, and consequently never in Carolina: he is six feet high, about the size of 

 a middle sized ox. T.'ie male has palmated horns, not unlike those of the German elk, 

 but differs in having branched brow antlers. The stag of America resembles the European 

 red deer, in the colour, shape, and form of the horn, though it is a much larger animal, and 



