EXISTING KINDS OF WILD CATTLE 223 
the United States. In 1903 Canada was estimated 
to possess only forty-one head, the enormous increase 
being apparently due to the transference of the Pablo 
herd from the United States. Of wild bison the 
total number is estimated at 475, of which twenty-five 
are in the Yellowstone, and the remaining 450 in 
Canada. In 1908 the number of wild Canadian bison 
was estimated at 300. The grand total of pure- 
bred animals living in North America at the date 
mentioned was thus approximately 2108, against 191 7 
in 1908. 
The name buffalo is the English equivalent of the 
Italian bufolo or bufalo, which is itself apparently 
derived from the Latin bubalis. The last name, as 
mentioned in an earlier chapter, seems to have been 
originally the designation of the bubal hartebeest 
{Bubalis boselaphus) of North Africa, but was applied 
by early writers, at all events in some cases, to the 
aurochs. Later on, when the domesticated breed 
of the Indian arna, or buffalo, was introduced into 
Italy — probably about the year 600 ^ — the name seems 
to have been transferred to that animal. Buffalo, there- 
fore, is properly applicable to the Indian arna {Bos 
[Buba/us] buba/is), as distinct from the African species. 
Buffaloes differ from all the cattle hitherto mentioned 
by the triangular section of a large portion of their 
wholly black horns, the smooth tips alone being 
circular or nearly so. When these smooth, cylindrical 
tips are worn down by use, nearly the whole of the 
horn becomes of the triangular type. The horns arise 
low down on the skull, but as their basal portion — 
especially in the African species — is often much 
expanded, it may extend close up to the occiput. 
^ Vide supra^ p. 6i. 
