6364 



Notice of the various 



hair growing from the rump to its extremity, like that of a horse. 

 Those which I saw were tame, and as tractable as other cattle." Here 

 we have a distinct notice of the yak, both wild and tame, in a part of 

 Asia where it would appear to be now quite unknown ! The name 

 "bubul" applied to it has probably its connexion with Bubalus. 

 Remains of extinct bisons have been found in Siberia, and of three or 

 four species in North America, as figured by Cuvier and by Harlan 

 and others; and we really feel some difficulty to imagine that our 

 modern European bison could, under any circumstances, have deve- 

 loped horns, the bony cores of which measure 2f feet "from base to 

 point upon the outer curve, 17 inches in vertical diameter [circum- 

 ference ? — surely not bow-string diameter, which gives an amount of 

 curvature quite unintelligible in the particular race or species] and 

 4 inches from front to back at their base as in a specimen of Bison 

 priscus from Clacton, in Essex, noticed in the ' Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History,' second series, vol. xx. p. 393. The largest horns 

 of the existing Lithuanian zubr do not exceed 18 inches round the 

 outer curvature, and this with their investing corneous sheath ! The 

 only known indigenous bovines of America are its peculiar living 

 bison, the musk ox of the Arctic "barren grounds," and the fossil 

 bisontine species referred to. Of one of the latter we possess drawings 

 of a most peculiar frontlet, with narrow yet bisontine forehead and 

 thick horn-cores, stated to be from the celebrated deposit of " Big- 

 bone Lick," in Kentucky, of a dwarf species, which seems to be 

 undescribed to this day. 



We have not seen the skull of a yak of pure blood, but suspect 

 that it has not the protrusile tubular orbits of the true bisons.* The 

 general form appears to be a step nearer to the taurines, and there is 

 less inequality of the fore and hind quarters ; still fourteen pairs of 

 ribs : long hair on the fore quarters and pendant from the flanks ; but 

 the most striking peculiarity is the "chowry" tail. The horns are 

 longer than in the modern typical bisons, and their tips curve con- 

 siderably backwards — instead of the rigid semi-circular flexure in at 

 least the bulls of the bisons proper. All appear to have the same 

 grunting voice. The general aspect of the yak, it may be added, is 

 distinctly bisontine, and it carries its head low, like the rest of the 

 subgroup. 



* Mr. Hodgson figures a yak skull, in vol. x. of the 'Asiatic Society's Journal,' in 

 his " Illustrations of the Genera of Boving ; " from which the orbits would seem to be 

 a little protrusile; but the bisontine peculiarities arc exceedingly reduced. 



