AHRENS — THE EUROPEAN BISON 
59 
period, “wisent” is meant; but Baron Herberstein, who was German 
ambassador in Russia from 1516 to 1518, has correctly distinguished the 
two animals and illustrated them in his book “Moscoviter wunderbare 
Historien” (Wonderful Moscovite tales), calling the auerochs “auerox” 
and wisent “bisont.” 
The province of East Prussia, which belonged since 1511 to the 
Hohenzollerns, harbored a very considerable number of wisents. Many 
wisent hunts are mentioned in literature, and the animals enjoyed 
considerable protection. In 1726, 117 wisents were still counted, but 
in 1755 the last animal in East Prussia was killed by a poacher. In 
Brandenburg the wisent existed till the eighteenth century. It was 
carefully protected and in 1743 eleven were still accounted for. In 
1768 the last Brandenburg wisent perished. 
Wisents hved in Austria and Hungary throughout the middle ages, 
but became extinct there in the sixteenth century. 
Finally the forest of Bieloviesh (Russian), Bialowies (German) or 
Bialowicza (Polish), in Lithuania near Grodno, and a district in the 
Caucasus Mountains are or were the only remaining regions in which 
any considerable numbers of indigenous wisents lived. To be sure, 
upon the estates of the Prince of Pless in southeastern Upper Silesia, 
and in Ascania Nova in southern Tauria (north of Crimea), belonging 
to the recently deceased F. von Falz-Fein, a small number were main- 
tained, but these animals had been imported and were not indigenous. 
The great forest of Bieloviesh had been a royal hunting preserve 
since the eleventh century and wisents could only be hunted there 
by special permission from the ruling dynasty. The Polish-Saxon 
kings protected the wisents and ceased to allow any economic use of 
the forest. After the dismemberment of Poland, the Russian czars 
continued this policy of protection so that up to our own times the 
forest remained a carefully protected sanctuary. 
To give some idea of the hunts which took place in Bieloviesh under 
Polish rule, we learn that at one hunt, in 1744, 30 wisents were killed; 
42 in 1752, and at the latter 1000 peasants were forced to act as beaters 
to drive the game together. 
Since 1820 the czars prohibited the cutting down of trees and serious 
efforts were made to protect game in general, and wisents in particular. 
In 1860 the first imperial hunt took place. Two thousand peasants 
acted as beaters; many foreign princes and a great number of persons 
of all ranks were present. Twenty-eight wisents and much other 
game were killed. In 1897, 37 wisents Tvere killed at an imperial 
hunt; in 1900, 45. 
