CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9, RUMINANTIA. 
485 
THE AMERICAN BISON. 
"The other calves took no nourish mer.t on the first day of their captivity; but the next, the one 
of tliree months of age "began to suck one of the cows, and appeared very gay. His companions 
in captivity, except one of fifteen months old, began by first drinking some milk from the hand, 
then they drank greedily from a pail, and as soon as it was empty they began to lick each other. 
In a short time they lost all their savage manners, which gave place to sra extreme vivacity and 
petulence. When they were taken out of their stable to go into the large barn-yard, the rapidity 
and lightness of their movements were like those of deer. They frolicked with the domestic 
calves around them, fought with them, and, though apparently much stronger, appeared to yield 
through complaisance. The male aurochs of fifteen months, kept a long time his savage and soli- 
tary manners ; he became angry at the sight of a man, shook his head, brandished his tail, and 
menaced with his horns. After two months' captivity, however, he became tame and attached 
himself to the peasant who fed him. He then had more liberty given to him." 
Two of the animals thns taken, Avere sent to London, and placed in the Zoological Gardens, as 
already stated, but, unfortunately, they died soon after. 
The American Bison, Bos Americamcs, the only bovine animal indigenous to America, and 
confined exclusively to Korth America, has many points of similarity with the Aurochs. In both 
we have the huge head a,nd the lengthened spinal process of the dorsal vertebrae for the attach- 
ment of the brawny muscles that support and wield it. In both, we have the conical hump be- 
tween the shoulders in consequence, and the shaggy mane in all seasons ; and each presents a 
model of brute force, formed to push and throw down. When full-grown the American animal is 
fully the size of our oxen, and weighs from 1,600 to 2,200 pounds. When fat it yields one hundred 
and fifty pounds of tallow. The head is very large, and carried low ; the eyes are small, black, 
and piercing ; the horns are short, small, sharp, set far apart, — for the forehead is very broad, — 
and directed outward and backward, so as to be nearly erect, with a slight curve toward the out- 
ward-pointing tips. The hump on the shoulder is not a mere lump of fatty secretion, like that of 
the zebu, but consists, exclusive of a deposit of fat which varies much in qnantity, of the strong 
