CHAP. 15. (15.)—THE ANIMALS OF SCYTHIA; THE BISON.
Scythia produces but very few animals, in consequence of
the scarcity of shrubs. Germany, which lies close adjoining
it, has not many animals, though it has some very fine kinds
of wild oxen: the bison, which has a mane, and the urus,[1]
possessed of remarkable strength and swiftness. To these, the
vulgar, in their ignorance, have given the name of bubalus[2]
whereas, that animal is really produced in Africa, and rather
bears a resemblance to the calf and the stag.
1. Cuvier remarks upon the two animals here mentioned, the bison and
the urus, that Europe, at the present time, contains only one species of wild
ox, the bison, or aurochs of the Germans, which still exists, although in
small numbers only, in the forests of Lithuania. There are, however, fossil
remains, in different parts of the north of Europe, of other animals of the
same genus, which may have been the urus of Pliny, and not extinct when
he wrote. Ajasson, vol. vi. pp. 413, 414; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 365. The
description by Cæsar of the urus of Gaul, Bell. Gall. B. vi. c. 26, seems
to agree with the remains of the fossil animal, and may, therefore, be con-
sidered as confirming the opinion, that both animals were in existence when
Pliny wrote.—B.
2. This appears to have been a species of antelope, the Antelope bubalus
of Linnæus. Cuvier observes, that Strabo places it among the gazelles,
and Aristotle associates it with the stag and the deer, while Oppian's description of the urus, agrees with those of the gazelle.—B.