BOVIDIE, one of the most extensive and important families of mammals, charater ized pre-eminently by the possession of hollow persistent horns in both sexes, and the form of digestive apparatus which involves chewing the cud. The family consists of the large herbivorous animals with cloven hoofs, which are most prominent as game, and which have supplied nearly all our domestic animals, except horses and camels. This family includes all of the ruminants, except the deer, giraffes and pronghorn, and embraces five sections or sub-families, namely: the antelopes (Anti lopinm) • the goats (Caprinse) ; the sheep (Ovine) ; the musk-ox (Ovibovinm) ; and the oxen (Bovine). Although in a general way the members of these sections are easily recog nized, all are connected by intermediate ex amples whose position is assigned with diffi culty, so that a general structural likeness covers even such different examples as the delicate antelopes and the heavy cattle. A conspicuous common character is found in the nature of the horns, which gave the name Cavicornia to the group in the early classifica tions. These horns are always in pairs, and consist of sheaths of horn growing from the skin and covering •cores,* which are pro tuberances of bone from the frontal bones of the skull, varying in form in the different groups, and contain hollow spaces, which are extensions of the frontal sinuses. These horns begin to grow soon after the animal is born, and increase until they attain their full size with the maturity of the individual; with very few exceptions they are worn by both sexes, but those of the males, especially among sheep, are often considerably larger and more effective as weapons than those of the females. No ani mal outside of this family possesses hollow horns of this character, except the pronghorn, and in this case they are branched, and are an nually shed, neither of which conditions ever occurs among the Bovidm.
The Bovidm are distributed throughout the whole world, except Australia and South America. They are in the main gregarious, and where the nature of their habitat permits, as on the plains inhabited by most antelopes and certain bison, they gather into enormous herds. The sheep, goats, and some of the antelopes, are confined to mountain ranges; most of the oxen dwell in forests; and the musk-ox is restricted to Arctic lands. Most of these animals, however, show great adaptability to new climates and conditions, have a high degree of variability, and are susceptible of taming and domestication. In consequence they have furnished to mankind the most im portant of his aids to agriculture, as the cattle, sheep and goats, which he has been able to take with him to every part of the world, to train to his service, or to develop by careful improve ment into the great resources of food and clothing, which they have become. See ANI MALS, DOMESTIC, and the names of the various groups and species composing the family.
BOW, the earliest instrument known, and the most generally diffused, among all savage and barbarous people for the propulsion of missiles in the chase or in war. There are two forms of the bow, the long-bow and the cross bow, the former of which is the earlier, the more general and by far the more celebrated, as being the weapon of the famous English archers of the Middle Ages, who were pop ularly said to carry at their belts the lives of four-and-twenty Scots, that being the number of clothyard arrows in their quivers. The long-bow passed out of use as a military weapon with the improvement of firearms; but there were men yet alive in the beginning of last century who remembered that the High landers, in the Jacobite rising of 1715, carried bows and arrows; and at the capture of Paris, in 1814, Bashkirs and Circassians, in the serv ice of Russia, were seen in the streets of that city, armed in chain-mail, with bow-cases and quivers. Some of the North American Indians,
especially the Comanches and the Apaches, were very expert with the bow. Whatever the substance of which the bow is made, whether of wood, horn or steel, its figure is nearly the same in all countries, having generally two inflexions, between which, in the place where the arrow is fixed, is a right line. The Grecian bow was somewhat in the form of the letter 2: in drawing it, the hand was brought back to the right breast, and not to the ear. The Scythian bow was distinguished for its remark able curvature, which was nearly semi-circular; that of the modern Tartars is similar to it. The materials of bows have been different in different countries. The Persians and Indians made them of reeds. The Lycian bows were made of the cornel-tree; those of the Ethio pians of the palm-tree. That of Pandarus was made from the horn of a mountain goat, 16 palms in length; the string was an oxhide thong. The horn of the antelope is still used for the same purpose in the East. The long bow was the favorite national weapon in Eng land. The battles of Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and Agincourt (1415) were won by this weapon. It was made of yew, ash, etc., of the height of the archer. The arrow being usually half the length of the bow, the clothyard was only employed by a man six feet high. The arbalist, or cross-bow, was a popular weapon with the Italians, and was introduced into England in the 13th century. The arrows shot from it were called quarrels.
Of the power of the bow, and the distance to which it will carry, some remarkable anec dotes are related. Xenophon mentions an Ar cadian whose head was shot through by a Carduchian archer. Stuart mentions a random shot of a Turk, which he found to be 584 yards; and Mr. Strutt saw the Turkish Ambas sador shoot 480 yards in the archery ground near Bedford Square in London. Lord Bacon speaks of a Turkish bow which has been known to pierce a steel target or a piece of brass two inches thick. In the journal of King Edward VI it is mentioned that 100 archers of the King's guard shot at a one-inch board, and that some of the arrows passed through this and into another board behind it, although the wood was extremely solid and firm. It has been the custom of many savage nations to poison their' arrows. This practice is men tioned by Homer and the ancient historians; and we have many similar accounts of modern travelers and navigators from almost every part of the world. Some of these stories are of doubtful authority, but others are well authenticated. Some poison obtained by Con damine from South American savages pro duced instantaneous death in animals inoculated with it. The poisoned arrows used in Guiana are not shot from a bow, but blown through a tube. See AIR-GUN; ARCHERY; ARMS; Bows AND ARROWS.
Ix music it is the well-known implement by the means of which the tone is produced from viols, violins and other instruments of that kind. It is made of a thin staff of elastic wood, tapering slightly till it reaches the lower end, to which the hairs (about 80 or 100 horse hairs) are fastened, and with which the bow is strung. At the upper end is an ornamented piece of wood or ivory called the nut, and fastened with a screw, which serves to regulate the tension of the hairs. It is evident that the size and construction of the bow must cor respond with the size of the species of viol instruments from which the tone is to be pro duced.