AMERICAN BISON. 
I hair is softer than the finest wool. We can, 
1 therefore, scarcely avoid helievlng these Bisons 
of the new continent to be of a different spe- 
cies from those of the old. Yet they have 
preserved all the principal characters ; the 
hunch on the shoulders, the long hair under 
the muzzle, as well as on the hinder parts of the 
body, and the short legs and tail : and, if we 
give ourselves the trouble of comparing what 
Hernandez, Fernandez, and every other his- 
torian and traveller of the new world, have 
said, with what the ancient and modern natu- 
ralists have written concerning the Bison of 
Europe, we shall be convinced that these ani- 
mals are not of a different species. Thus, the 
Wild and the Tame Ox ; the European; Asi- 
atic, American, and African, Ox ; the Bona- 
sus; the Aurochs ; the Bison ; and the Zebu; 
are all animals of one and the same species, 
which have acquired their different variations, 
from the several distinctions of climate, food, 
and treatment. 
Even the hunch or wen of the Bison, is 
.^aid to be no other than an accidental charac- 
ter, which is defaced and lost iu the mixture of 
the 
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