AMERICAN "IBISON. 
fertile, the Bisons are all of a prodigious size ; 
,in Africa, and Arabia Psetrea, where the land 
is dry, the Bisons, or Zebus, are of the small- 
est stature. 
In every part of America, BufFon remarks 
there are Oxen without hunches, which the 
Spaniards and other Europeans have success- 
fully carried tliither. These having multi- 
plied, are now only become less in their new 
abodes ; yet the species was. absolutely un- 
known in South America : in all the northern 
parts, however, as far as Florida, Louisiana, 
and even to Mexico, the Bisons, or Hunched 
Oxen, are to be found in great numbers. 
These Bisons, which formerly inhabited the 
woods of Germany, Scotland, and other of 
our northein countiies, have probably passed 
from one continent to the other ; and are be- 
come, like other animals, smaller in this new 
world. As they have been habituated to cli- 
mates more or less cc^ld, they have preserved 
their coats more or less warm ; and their hair 
is, of consequence, proportionablv longer and 
thicker. The beard is longer at Hudson's 
Bay, than at Mexico ; and, in general, the 
hair 
