Note 1653 — BOOK VIII. THE NATURE OF THE TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS.

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 considered as confirming the opinion, that both animals were in existence when Pliny wrote.—B.