6 4 Oxen
Number.
Length along
Outer Curve.
Basal
Circumference. Tip to Tip. Frontal Width. Locality.
45.392 23' l 6 3 9 ! Ilford
44,063 t8 | l 3i ? r 3 Eschscholtz Bay
M. 5,440 ' H i 11 26* 11 Twickenham
M. 5,064 H 11 30 12^- Crayford
24,589 !3 10 } 32* 12 Porcupine river
Distribution.—The northern portion of both hemispheres, ranging in
America from Alaska and the Porcupine river at least as far south as
Texas and Georgia. In the Old World it ranged as far west as Yorkshire,
and as far south as Spain and Italy, while it was also widely spread over
Eastern Europe, whence it extended into Northern Siberia and the New
Siberian Islands. Rather than divide the Plistocene bison of the circumpolar
countries into one eastern and several western species, it would, in
my opinion, be preferable to regard both the living forms as sub-specific
modifications of the primitive stock. This has, indeed, been suggested
by Prof. Dawkins,1 who remarks “ That in former times' the herds
[of bison], now rapidly being destroyed by the hunters in the tract of
country extending from New Mexico1 into the British Dominions, were
conterminous with those of Asia.” Tn Britain remains of the bMbn...occur
in the river-gravels, brick-earths, and cavern-deposits, but are unknown
from the peat of the fens, at the time of deposition of which the animal
would consequently appear to have been exterminated.
4. T he E uropean B ison*—B os bonasus
Bos bonasus, Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. 12, vol. i. p. 99 (1766) ; Radde, Proc.
Zoo!. Soc. 1893, p. 175 ; Satunin, Zool. fa h rb . Syst. vol. ix. p. 104 (1896).
Bos urus, Boddaert, Elenchus ' Anim. p. 150 (1788) ; Fischer, Synop.
Mamm. p. 497 (1839) ; Huet, Bull. Soc. Acclim. Paris, vol. xxxviii. p. 344
(1891) ; Ward, Records o f Big Game, p. 279 (1896).
Early Man in Britain, p. 97 (1880).
EUROPEAN BISON.