454 ZOOLOGY. 
Formerly its range was much more extensive, overspreading most of the 
United States. It is, however, probable that the bison did not occur east 
of Hudson River and Lake Champlain, and perhaps in no point on the 
immediate Atlantic coast. 
The common ox, Bos taurus (pl. 107, figs. 7 and 8), is sipeeee to be 
derived from a aoe now extinct, and ace formerly inhabited Hurope, 
and only found now in a fossil state. How far this is the case it is impos- 
sible to say. In the numberless varieties the horns have very different 
directions, and are of very different sizes, sometimes even totally wanting. 
The common races of the torrid zone have all a lump of fat upon their 
shoulders, and some of them are not larger than the hog. 
The ure-ox (Sos urus), which formerly inhabited all the ‘empenme 
parts of Europe, but has now taken refuge in the great marshy forests 
of Lithuania and the Caucasus, where it is become so exceedingly rare, 
that in order to prevent its complete destruction and disappearance from 
among living animals, the penalty of death is threatened to all who may 
kill one of them. It has been generally considered, and perhaps very 
erroneously, as the wild stock of our domestic horned cattle. 
Another species is Los bubalus (pl. 109, jig. 2), originally confined to 
India, and brought into Egypt and Greece during the middle ages. This 
animal is subdued with great difficulty, being extremely powerful; it prefers 
marshy grounds, and feeds upon coarse plants which the common ox would 
refuse. Its flesh is not esteemed. In the mountainous districts of the 
northwest of India there is a domestic race, which very likely is descended 
from this species. 
A third species is the yak (B. grunniens), originally from the mountains 
of Thibet, and now very widely spread in Turkey. It is a small species, 
the tail of which is completely covered with long hairs like that of the 
horse, and provided with a long mane on the back. 
A very large species, of an excessively ferocious disposition, inhabits the 
woods of Caffraria, the Cape buffalo (B. caffer), provided with very large 
horns directed outwards and downwards, ascending from the point, flat- 
tened, and so wide at their base that they nearly cover the forehead, leaving 
merely a triangular space between them. 
The oxen made their first appearance in Europe towards the end of the 
tertiary epoch, and seem to have been quite numerous, for their remains 
are found in almost all the caverns and sandy deposits. 'T'wo species are 
described as peculiar to the State of Kentucky (B. bombifrons and B. 
latifrons). A fragment of the head of an ox was found near one of the 
tributaries of the Orange river (Africa); several species are indicated in 
the Sivalic Mountains and other parts of the Asiatic continent, showing a 
distribution similar in both the tertiary and modern eras. 
The genus Ovibos contains bat one species, the musk ox of North 
America (O. moschatus). The horns are approximated and similarly 
directed, but meet on the forehead in a straight line; those of the female 
are smaller and more widely separated; the end of the snout is furnished 
with hairs. It stands low, and is covered with tufted hair that reaches to 
658 
