BISON, the name of a genus of Ruminant Animals belonging to the family Boridov. The genus Bison comprehends two living species, one of them European, now become very scarce and verging towards extinction ; the other American, and, notwithstanding the advances of man, still multitudinous.
European Bison.
As much difference of opinion has prevailed with regard to the historical records and true characters of the first or European species of Bison, we shall quote a few of the synonyms of this animal as given in the Catalogue of the Specimens of Mammalia, in the British Museum, by Dr. J. E. Gray.
The Bison Aurochs, or European Bison, is the Boa Bison of LiIMMUS ; Bison Bonassus, Dr. J. E. Gray; Boa Urea, Bodaaert ; Boa Bison Auroela, Lesson ; Boa Taurus Urns, Gmelin ; Boa Bonassus, Brisson ; Bison Europccus, Owen ; Boa Bison sea Bonassus, Wagner ; Bison jubatua, Pliny ; Bison, Gesner, Aldrovandus, and Gilibert ; Urns, Caesar; Aurochs, Cuvier, Buffon, and Desmoulins ; Bonasus, Pliny, Leaner, Klein, Buffon, and Ray. It is also the Urochs, Auer-Ochse or Auer-Ochs, Wald-Ochse, Wilder Ochs, Berg-Ochs, Buckcl-Ochs, Afrikanischcr Wilder Ochs, Preussiselo and Lithanischo Auer-Ochs, Zurb, and Iblanistier, of various German writers. To these various synonyms we may now add that of Bison priscus of Owen, as there is no doubt that the bones of the Great Fossil Aurochs belong to the same species as those now living in the forests of Lithuania.
The difficulty of identifying this animal has arisen from the fact, that besides the Bison there existed at one time in Europe and in Great Britain a wild ex (Boa primigenius), whose remains are numerous, but which has undoubtedly become quite extinct. Pennant, in his `British Zoology,' after stating his belief that the ancient wild cattle of our island were the Bisontes jsitaii of Pliny, thus continues :— " The Urua of the Hereynian forest, described by Camay, book vi., was of this kind, the same which is called by the modern Germans Aurochs, that llos sqirestris." Now let LIB look at Gasser's description. " These Uri are little inferior to elephants in size, but are bulls In their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their strength and great thelr swiftness, nor do they spare man or beast when they have caught sight of them. These, when trapped in pitfalls, the hunters diligently kilL The youths exercising themselves by this sort of hunting are hardened by the toil ; and those among them who have ' killed most, bringing with them the horns as testimonials, acquire ' great praise. But these Uri cannot be habituated to man or made tractable, not even when young. The great size of the horns, as well as the form and quality of them, differs much from the horns of our oxen. Thaw, when carefully selected, they ring round the edge with silver and IOC them for drinking-cups at their ample feasts." Though
there are parts of this description applicable to the European Bison, there is one striking character which forbids us to conclude that Camer's Ursa was identical with it. A glance nt the European Bison will convince us that it never could have afforded the horns whose amplitude Ca!Aitr celebrates. In the `Archmologia; voL iii. p. 15, it is stated that the Borstal horn is supposed to have belonged to the Bison or Buffalo. That it might have belonged to a 13uffido is not impossible, but that it did not belong to a Bison is sufficiently clear from the following description : " It is 2 feet 4 inches long on the convex bend, and 23 inches on the concave. The inside at the large end is 3 inches diameter, being perforated there so as to leave the thickness only of half an inch for about 3 inches deep; but farther in it is thicker, being not no much or so neatly perforated." This horn was no doubt supplied by the Great Fossil Ox, the B04 primigenius. Horns were anciently used amongst us in the conveyance of inheritances ; of which we have examples in the Borstal horn, and the Pusey horn. These probably belonged to the Great Fossil Ox. That the common Ox could not be descended from the Bison as has been conjectural by some, is proved by the fact that the Aurochs or European Bison haa 14 pairs of ribs, while the Ox has but 13, and that the legs of the Aurochs are more slender and longer than those of the Ox and true Buffalo. The European Bison, moreover, has but five lumbar vertebrae, while the other oxen, with the exception of the American Bison, which has only four according to Cuvier, possess six. rovtn.t:.] " T frout of the common Ox," says Cuvier, "is flattened, and even in a small degree concave; that of the Aurochs is rounded into convexity (bombe), though rather lam than that of the Buffalo. It is square in the Ox, its height being nearly equal to its breadth, taking for its base an imaginary line between the orbits. In the Aurocha, with the same mode of measurement, it is much broader than it is high, in the proportion of three to one. The horns are attached in the Ox to the extremities of the most elevated salient line of the head, that, namely, which separates the occiput from the front ; in the Aurochs this line is two inches farther back than the root of the horns. The plane of the occiput makes a sharp angle with the front in the Ox ; this angle is obtuse in the Auroelis ; and lastly, this quadrangular plane of the occiput, as it is in the Os, represents a half circle in the Aurochs." The figures here given were taken from the skull of the European Bison or Anroelis in the museum at l'arie. This must have been a young animal, as will be seen from comparing the repreaentatIon of its skull with that of the following speci men.