The European Bison, as found at the present day, has a very broad bead and arched forehead. The eyes are large and dark ; the hair on the forehead is long and wavy, and under the chin and breast it forms a kind of beard. In the winter the whole of the neck, bump, and shoulders are covered with a long duaky-brown hair, intermingled with a soft fur. The long hair is mat in the summer and renewed in the winter. The tail is of moderate length, covered with hair, and is terminated in a large tuft. The females are not so large as the males, and have not so much hair on their bodies.
The districts in which this animal is now found living are compara tively limited, as it appears to be confined to the forests of Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and some parts of the Caucasus. These animals have never been domesticated, but herds of them are protected in certain localities in the forest of Bialowieza, in Lithuania, under the direction of the Emperor of Russia. There are twelve herds thus kept, each herd being under the superintendence of one herdsman. The estimated number of all the herds is 800. They feed on grass and brushwood, and the bark of young trees, especially the willow, poplar, ash, and birch. They do not attain their full stature till their sixth year. They are very shy, and can only be approached from the leeward, as their smell is exceedingly acute. When accidentally fallen in with they become furioua, and passionately assail the intruder. When taken young they become accustomed to their keeper, but the approach of other persons excites their anger. Two young specimens were presented to the Zoological Society of London by the Emperor of Russia. Although it had been stated that tho Aurochs had a and we shall at once see how tame and weak its chiselling is when compared with that of the old male.
The American Bison has many points of similarity with the Aurochs. In both we have the huge head and the lengthened spinal processes of the dorsal vertebral for the attachment of the brawny muscles that support and wield it. In both we have the conical hump between the shoulders in consequence, and the shaggy mane in all seasons ; and each presents a model of brute force, formed to push and throw down.
This is the Taurus Mexicanus of Hernandez, who gives a woodcut of the beast, but not a good one ; the Taureau Sauvage of Hennepin, who also gives a figure of it, not better than that of Hernandez, and probably a copy from It ; the Buffalo of Lawson, Catesby, &c., of the Hudson's Bay traders, and of the Anglo-Americans generally ; the Bison of Ray and Pennant ; Boa Americanus of Gmelin ; American Wild Ox or Bison of Warden ; Peecheek of the Algonquin Indiana ; Moostoosh of the Crees; and Adgiddah of the Chippewayana, according to Sir John Richardson.
Pennant says, "In America these animals are found in the countries 600 miles west of Iludaon'a Ray ; this is their most northern residence. From thence they are met with in great droves as low as Cibole (on the authority of Purcluts) in lat. 33% a little north of California, and also in the province of Mivera in New Mexico. The species instantly ceases south of those countries. They inhabit Canada to the west of the lakes ; and in greater abundance in the rich savannahs which border the river Id imaisaippi and the great rivers which fall into it from the west, in Upper Louisiana. There they are seen in herds Innumerable, promiscuously with multitudes of stags and deer during morning and evening, retiring in the sultry heats into the shade of tall reeds which border the rivers of America." Joseph Sabine, in the Appendix to ' Franklin's Narrative,' says that they are abundant in all parts of North America, wherever the pro gress of cultivation has not interfered with their range, and that they are extremely numerous on the plains of the Saskatchewan River. They are also found, he observes, though leas plentifully, in the woods as far north as Great Slave Lake. The most northern situation in which they were observed by Sir John Franklin's party was Slave Point, on the north side of the lake. In the name work it is stated that the natives say that the Wood Buffaloes, as they are called, are larger than those of the plains, but the difference is not materiaL Sir John Richardson, in his Fauna Boroali-Americana,' gives the following compendious history of the geographical range of the American Bison :—"At the period when Europeans began to form settlements in North America, this animal was occasionally met with on the Atlantic coast ; but even then it appears to have been rare to the eastward of the-Appalachian Mountains, for Lawson has thought it to be a fact worth recording, that two were killed in one season on Cape Fear River. As early as the first discovery of Canada, it was unknown in that country, and no mention of it whatever occurs in the ' Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeoia,' nor in the ' Nova Francia' of De Monte, who obtained the first monopoly of the fur trade. Thoodat, whose 'history of Canada' was published in 1636, merely Rays that he was informed that bulls existed in the remote western countries. Warden mentions that at no very distant date
herds of them existed in the western parts of Pennsylvania, and that as late as the year 1766 they were pretty numerous in Kentucky; but they have gradually retired before the white population, and are now, he says, rarely seen to the south of the Ohio, on the east aide of the Mississippi. They still exist, however, in vast numbers in Louisiana, roaming in countless herds over the prairies that are watered by the Arkansas, Platte, ,Missouri, and upper branches of the Saskatchewan and Peace rivers. Great Slave Lake, in lat. 60*, was at one time the northern boundary of their range ; but of late years, according to the testimony of the natives, they have taken possession of the flat lime stone district of Slave Point, on the north side of that lake, and have wandered to the vicinity of Great Marten Lake, in lat. 63' or 64*. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the limestone and sandstone formations lying between the great Rocky Mountain ridge and the lower eastern chain of primitive rocks, are the only districts in the fur countries that are frequented by the bison. In these comparatively level tracts there is much prairie land, on which they find good grass in the summer, and also many marshes overgrown with bulrushes and carices," which supply them with winter food. Salt-springs and lakes also abound on the confines of the limestone, and there are several well-known salt-licks where bison are sure to be found at all seasons of the year. They do not frequent any of the districts formed of primitive rocks, and the limits of their range to the eastward, within the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, may be nearlycorrectly marked on the map by a line commencing in long. 97' on the lied River, which flows into the south end of Lake Winnipeg, crossing the Saskatchewan to the westward of Basquiau Hill, and running from thence by the Athapescow to the east end of Great Slave Lake. Their migrations to the westward were formerly limited by the Rocky Mountain range, and they are still unknown in New Caledonia and on the shores of the Pacific to the north of the Columbia River, but of late years they have found out a passage across the mountains, near the sources of the Saskatchewan, and their numbers to the Westward are said to be annually increasing. In 1806, when Lewis and Clarke crossed the mountains at the head of the Missouri, bison-skins were an important article of traffic between the inhabitants on the east side and the natives to the westward. Farther to the southward, in New Mexico and California, the bison appears to be numerous on both sides of the Rocky Mountain chain." The districts of America which these animals inhabit are described very graphically in Washington Trving's ' Tour on the Prairies.' The American male Bison, when at its full size, is said to weigh 2000 lbs., though 12 or 14 cu-t. is considered a good weight in the fur countries. Sir John Richardson gives 8 feet as its length, exclusive of the tail, which is 20 inches, and upwards of 6 feet as its height at the fore quarters. The head is very large, and carried low ; the eyes are small, black, and piercing; the horns are short, small, sharp, set far apart, for the forehead is very broad, and directed outwards and backwards, so as to be nearly erect, with a slight curve towards the outward-pointing tips. The hump is not a mere lump of fatty secre tion, like that of the zebu, but consists, exclusive of a deposit of fat which varies much in quantity, of the strong muscles attached to the highly-developed spinous processes of the last cervical and first dorsal vertebra., forming fit machinery for the support and movement of the enormous head. The chest is broad, and the legs are strong; the hind parts are narrow, and have a comparatively weak appearance. The tail is clothed with short fur-like hair, with a long, straight, coarse, blackish-brown tuft at the end. In winter the whole body is covered with long shagged hair, which in summer falls off, leaving the blackish wrinkled akin exposed, except on the forehead, hump, fore quarters, under-jaw, and throat, where the hair is very long and shaggy, and mixed with much wool Catesby observes that on the forehead of a bull the hair is a foot long, thick, and frizzled, and of a dusky black colour ; that the length-of this hair hanging over their eyes impedes their flight, and is frequently the cause of their destruction ; but that this obstruction of sight is in some measure supplied by their good noses, which are no small safeguard to them. A bull, says he, in summer, with his body bare and his head muffled with long hair, makes a very formidable appearance. In :Rummer the general colour of the hair is between dark-umber and liver-brown, and lustrous. The tips of the hair as it lengthens in winter are paler, and before it is shed in summer much of it becomes of a pale dull yellowish-brown. In the female the head is smaller, and the hair on the fore parts is not so long as it in' in the male.