BORROWING, when money, .corn, grain, gold, or other commodity, merely esteemed according to its price, is bor rowed, it is repaid by returning an equal quantity of the same thing, or an equal value in money. 11 money is borrowed, it is always understood that interest is payable, and it is by law demandable ; but when a house, or a horse, &c. is borrow ed, the restoration of the identical pro perty is always understood ; or if a thing be used for any other or more purposes, than those for which it was borrowed, or be lost, the party may have his action on the case for it.
BOS, in zoology, the ox, a genus of quadrupeds of the order of Pecora. The generic character is, horns concave, turn ed outwards, inflated, smooth ; front teeth eight in the lower jaw; canine teeth none. B. taurus, the bison, limn which. the se veral races of common cattle have been gradually derived, is found wild in. many parts, both of the old and the new conti nent; inhabiting woody regions, and ar riving at a size far larger than that of the domestic or cultivated animal" In this its native state of wildness, the bison is dis tinguished not only by his size, but by the superior depth and shagginess of his hair, which, about the head, neck, and shoulders, is sometimes of such a length as almost to touch the ground. His horns are rather short, sharp-pointed, extreme ly strong, and stand distant from each other at their bases, like those of the com mon bull. His colour is sometimes of a dark blackish brown, and sometimes ru fous brown; his eyes large and fierce ; his limbs extremely strong, and his whole as pect in a degree savage and gloomy. See Plate Ill. Mammalia, fig. 2.
The principal European regions where this animal is at present found are, the marshy forests of Poland, the Carpathian mountains, and Lithuania. Its chief Asi atic residence is the neighbourhood of Mount Caucasus ; but it is also found in other parts of the Asiatic world.
The common ox is, in reality, the bi son reduced to a domestic state ; in which, in different parts of the world, it runs into as many varieties as the sheep ; differing widely in size, form, and colour, according to climate and other circum stances. Its importance in this its domes
tic state needs not be mentioned. For merly the ox constituted the whole rich es of mankind ; and he is still the basis of the wealth of nations, which subsist and flourish in proportion to the cultiva tion of their lands and the number of their cattle.
B. Americanus.—llorns round, distant at the base, short, black, and pointing out wards ; mane long, woolly ; gibbosity of the hack large and fleshy ; neck thick ; hind-parts slender ; tail a foot long, tuft ed at the end ; hair of the head and bunch long, woolly, waving, rusty brown. It grows to a vast size, and has been found to weigh sixteen hundred, and even two thousand four hundred pounds ; the strongest man cannot lift one of the skins from the ground: These were the only animals which bore any affinity to the European cattle, on the first discove ry of the American continent, and might have been made to answer every purpose of the European cow ; but the natives be ing in a savage state, and living chiefly by chase, had never attempted the do mestication of the animal.
The Urus, or wild bull, is a variety of the ox kind, and is chiefly to be met with in the extensive forests of Lithuania. It grows to a size almost equal to the ele phant, and is quite black ; the eyes are red and fiery, the horns thick and short, and the forehead covered with a quantity of curled hair ; neck is short and strong, and the skin has an odour of musk. The female, though not so big as the male, exceeds the largest of our bulls in size : nevertheless her udder is ex tremely small. Upon the whole, how ever, this animal, which greatly resem bles those of the tame kind, probably owes its variety to its natural wildness, and the richness of the pastures where it is produced. Fig. 1.