Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
The buffalo, like all large animals of warm climates, is fond of
bathing, and even of remaining in the water; he swims well, and
boldly traverses the most rapid floods. As his legs are longer than
those of the ox, he runs also quicker. The Negroes of Guinea, and the
Indians of Malabar, where the buffaloes are very numerous, often hunt
them. They neither pursue nor attack them openly, but climbing up
the trees, or hiding themselves in the thickets, which the buffaloes
cannot penetrate, on account of their horns, they wait for and kill
them. Those people are fond of the flesh of the buffalo, and gain great
profit by vending their hides and horns, which are harder and better
than those of the ox.
The animal, called, at Congo, _Empacassa_ or _Pacassa_, though very
badly described by travellers, seems to me to be the buffalo; and
that which they have spoken of, under the name of _Empabunga_, or
_Impalunca_, in the same country, may possibly be the bubalus, whose
history we shall give with that of the antelope.
SUPPLEMENT.
M. De Querhoent says, that altho' the bisons invariably differ from the
common oxen by the hunch on their backs, and their hair being longer,
yet they breed in the Isle of France, and their flesh is preferable
to that of European oxen; their hair is also smoother, their legs
thinner, and their horns are longer, and after some few generations the
hunch entirely disappears. There was one brought to Holland from North
America, which was carried about to different towns, by a Swede, in
a large cage; this one had an enormous mane round his head, which was
not hair, but a very fine wool, divided into locks like a fleece; the
skin was of a black colour, excepting on the hunch, where the hair was
longer, and under that the skin was rather tawny; and to us this animal
seemed to differ from the European by the hunch and wool only.
Bisons are said to have existed formerly in the north of Europe, and
Gesner asserts, that even in his time there were some in Scotland;
but I have been credibly informed by letters, both from England and
Scotland, that not the smallest remembrance of them can be traced in
that country. Mr. Bell, in his travels from Russia to China, mentions
seeing two species of oxen in the northern parts of Asia, one of which
was the aurochs, and the other what we, after Gmelin, have called the
Tartarian, or Grunting Cow, which seemed to be of the same species as
the bison; and in which we find, by comparison, a perfect coincidence
of characters, excepting that the former grunts and the latter bellows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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