The camel does not copulate like other quadrupeds, for the female sinks upon her knees and receives the male in the same situation as she rests, sleeps, or is loaded. This posture, to which they are easily accustomed, becomes natural to them, since they assume it at the time of their copulation. The female goes about twelve months with young, and, like all large quadrupeds, produces but one at a birth: they have great plenty of milk, which is thick and nourishing, even for the human species, when mixed with a great quantity of water. The females seldom do any labour when with young, but are suffered to bring forth at liberty. The advantages derived from their produce, and their milk, perhaps surpasses that which would be gained by their labour; nevertheless, in some places a great part of the females undergo castration, in order to render them more fit for labour; and it is pretended, that this operation, instead of diminishing augments their strength and vigour, and adds to the beauty of their appearance. In general the fatter camels are, the more capable they are of enduring great fatigue. Their hunches appear to be formed from the superabundance of nourishment, for in long journeys, where they are stinted in their food, and where they suffer both hunger and thirst, these hunches gradually diminish, and are reduced so flat that their places are only discovered by the length of the hair, which is always longer on these parts than on the rest of the back; the leanness of the body increases in proportion as the hunches diminish. The Moors, who transport all their merchandize from Barbary and from Numidia into Ethiopia, depart with their camels well loaded, who are then very fat and vigorous, but bring the same animals back so lean that they commonly sell them at a low price to the Arabs of the desart, who fatten them anew
The ancients have affirmed that these animals are capable of generating at the age of three years: this appears to me rather doubtful, for at that age they have not attained half their growth. The genital member of the male, like that of the bull, is very long and slender; it tends forward during copulation, like that of every other animal; but in its usual state, it is bent backwards, and voids the urine between the legs, so that the male and female pass their urine in the same manner. The young camel sucks its mother twelve months, and when designed for labour, to make him strong and robust they leave him at liberty to suck or graze for a longer time, nor begin to load or put him to work till he has attained the age of four years. The camel commonly lives forty or fifty years, which term of life is proportioned to the time of its growth. It is without any foundation that some authors have advanced that he lives a hundred years.
By uniting under one point of view all the qualities of this animal, and all the advantages which are gained by him, he must be acknowledged to be the most useful of all the creatures under subordination to man. Gold and silk are not the true riches of the east, the camel is the treasure of Asia. He is of greater value than the elephant, as he does as much labour, and consumes not a twentieth part of the food. Besides the whole species is subjected to man, who propagates and multiplies it as much as he pleases. But it is not so with the elephants, whom they cannot multiply, can only subdue them individually, and that with great trouble and difficulty. The camel is not only of greater value than the elephant but perhaps not of less than the horse, the ass, and the ox, when all their advantages are united. He carries as much as two mules, and not only eats less, but feeds on herbs as coarse as the ass. The female furnishes milk longer than the cow; the flesh of young camels is as good and wholesome as veal; their hair is finer, and more sought after than the best wool. Even their excrements are useful, for sal ammoniac is made of their urine, and their dung, when dried and powdered, serves them for litter, as well as the horses, with whom they often travel in countries where neither straw nor hay is known. To conclude, they also make excellent fewel of this dung, which burns freely, gives a flame as clear, and almost as lively, as that of dry wood, and which is of great use in the deserts, where not a tree is to be seen, and where, from the deficiency of combustible matters, fire is almost as scarce as water.
[THE BUFFALO, THE BONASUS, THE AUROCHS, THE BISON, AND THE ZEBU.]
Although the Buffalo is now common in Greece, and tame in Italy, it was known by neither the ancient Greeks nor Romans; for he never had a name in the language of these people. The word buffalo, even indicates a foreign origin, not derived either from the Greek or Latin tongues. In effect, this animal is originally a native of the warmest climates of Africa and India, and was not transported and naturalized in Italy, till towards the seventh century. The moderns very improperly apply the name of bubalus to this animal, which, in Greek and Latin implies indeed, an African animal, but very different from the buffalo, as it is easy to demonstrate, by many passages of ancient authors. If we would ascribe the bubalus to any particular genus, it rather belongs to that of the antelope, than to that of the ox or the buffalo[B]. Belon having seen a small hunched ox at Cairo, which differed from the buffalo and common ox, imagined it might be the bubalus of the ancients; but if he had carefully compared the characters of the bubalus given by the ancients, with those of this small ox, he would have discovered his error; besides, we can speak of it with decision, for we have seen this small hunched ox alive, and having compared the description we have given of it with that of Belon, we can have no doubt of its being the same animal. It was shewn at the fair at Paris in 1752, under the name of the zebu; which we have adopted to describe this animal by, for it is a particular breed of the ox, and not a species of the buffalo or bubalus.
[B] Upon the first publication of Buffon’s History, M. Caesani made some remarks upon the assertion that the buffalo had no name in the Greek or Latin languages and with a great display of erudition, in a letter to Buffon, endeavoured to shew that there were words in both these languages which nearly approached to that of buffalo; but M. Buffon himself justly remarks that Caetane rather proves the possibility of deriving the name of buffalo from some words in the Greek and Latin languages than that this name was really in use among them.
Aristotle, speaking of oxen, only mentions the common ox, except saying, that among the Arachotas in India, there are wild oxen, which differ from the domestic ones as much as wild boars differ from hogs; but in another part, he gives the description of a wild ox of Pæonia, a province adjoining to Macedonia, which he calls bonasus. Thus the common ox and the bonasus, are the only animals of this kind taken notice of by Aristotle; and what must appear singular, the bonasus, although fully described by this great philosopher, has not been recognised by any of the Greek or Latin naturalists who have written after him, all of whom have literally copied him on this subject; so that to this day, there is no more than the name of bonasus known, without the knowledge of the animal which it ought to be applied to. If we consider, that Aristotle, in speaking of the wild oxen of temperate climates, has only mentioned the bonasus; and that, on the contrary, the Greek and Latin authors of succeeding ages, have not spoken of the bonasus, but describe these wild oxen by the names of urus and bison, we shall be led to believe, that the bonasus must be either the one or the other of these animals; indeed by comparing what Aristotle has said of the bonasus, with what we know of the bison, it is more than probable, that these two names indicate the same animal. Julius Cæsar is the first who mentions the urus. Pliny and Pausanias are also the first who speak of the bison. Since Pliny’s time, the name of bubalus has been given indiscriminately to the urus, or the bison, and this confusion has increased with time. To the bonasus, bubalus, urus, and bison, have been added, the catopleba, the thur, the bubalus of Belon, the bisons of Scotland and America, and all our naturalists have made as many different species as they have found names. The truth is here so obscured by clouds, and so surrounded with errors, that it will be difficult to clear up this part of Natural History, which the contradiction of reports, the variety of descriptions, the multiplicity of names, the diversity of places, the difference of languages, and the obscurity of the times, seems to have condemned to perpetual darkness.
I shall, therefore, give my opinion upon this subject, and afterwards present the proofs upon which it is founded.