There is now no doubt that the Bison jubatua of Pliny (book viii. c. 15, and xxviii, c. 10), which he seems to dis tinguish from the Ursa, was the European Bison or Aurochs ; and though in the 15th chapter of the 8th book he mentions the tradition of a wild best in Pieonin called • Bonosus, after he has dismissed his Bisontes janti, and with every appearance of a conclu sion on his part that the BosallUI and Bison were nut identical Iris own description, when compared with that of Aristotle, will leave little doubt that the Bison jutat oda and Bonasus of Pliny and others, the Taratroos or Birsioos of Aristotle (for the word in written both wars), and the Blows. of Oppian, were no other than the European Bison.
Cuvier, in his Ossemens Foseilen; states it to be his opinion that this animal, the largest or nt least the most snaneive of all existing gendrupode after the rhinoceros, is a distinct species which man has never subdued. Following out this subject with his usual industry and ability, that great naturalist goes on to state that if Europe possessed a Urns, a Thur of the Poles, different from the Bison or the Aurochs of the Germans, it is only in its remains that this species can be traced. Such remains are found in the skulls of a species of Ox different from the Aurochs, in the superficial beds of certain dis tricts. This Cuvier was of opinion must have been the true Urns of the ancients, the original of our domestic Ox, the stock perhaps whence our wild cattle descended. Professor Owen, in his 'British Fossil Mammals,' has fully established the distinction between the Aurocha and the Great Fossil Ox, the Urns of the ancients, but he has shown that it is impossible that any of our forms of oxen or wild cattle should have been descended from this species which is now extinct. [Bovinx.] The head given below is figured by Cuvier as of doubtful character, but if compared with the skull of the Aurocha there can be little doubt of its identity.
natural enmity to domestic cattle, and that the young obstinately refused to be suckled by the domestic cow, the calves sent by the Emperor were suckled by a cow in the Regent's Park Gardens, and became very speedily attached to their foster-mother. These creatures unfortunately died a few months after they had been brought to this country. A very fine specimen was presented to the British Museum by the Emperor of Russia, which is now to be seen stuffed in the col lection. The dimensions of this animal are as follows :—
American Bison.
We have seen that the European Bison has fourteen pairs of ribs, while the common Ox has but thirteen. The specific difference of the American Bison is marked by its having fifteen ribs on each side. Thus, in the Bisons, the supplementary ribs spring from the anterior lumbar vertebrae, or rather from vertebrae which are lumbar as far as regards their situation, but dorsal when considered in relation to their functions. The contour of the skull has much in common with that of the European species, but its development, and indeed that of the whole frame, is much inferior in the female. Beneath is represented the skull of a young female American Bison,— The remains of the Anrocha have been found abundantly on the continent of Europe, and been described by Faujas, Cuvier, and H. von Meyer. Some of these carry the antiquity of this animal as far back as the period of the extinct pachyderms of the newer Pliocene deposits. On comparing these with recent specimens of the Aurocha from the Lithuanian forests, they are found to be generally of larger size, to have longer and somewhat less bent horns, but they present no satisfactory specific distinction.
That the Aurochs existed formerly in Great Britain is attested from the discovery of remains of the cranium and horn-cores from various newer Tertiary Fresh-Water deposits, especially in the counties of Kent and Essex along the borders of the Thames. In the hall of the Geological Society of London is a cranium with horn-corea, obtained by Mr. Warburton from the Fresh-Water Tertiary deposits of Walton in Essex. A broken skull was also discovered by Mr. H. E. Strickland, in the Fresh-Water Drift at Cropthorne, Worcestershire. Professor Phillips, in his Geology of Yorkshire,' records the discovery of the skull with the cores of the horns and the teeth at Bcilbecks, in Yorkshire. It was accompanied with the remains of fresh-water Mollusca and of the Mammoth, Rhinoceros, a species of a large Horse, a large Deer, Wolf, &c. It is to be regretted that the entire skeleton of the same individual has not hitherto been discovered, in order that a comparison of the number of ribs between this elder Bison, and the European and American Bisons of the present day might be made.