Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found: A Book of Zoology for Boys

by Mayne Reid

There is a variety of the zebu—or perhaps a distinct species—known as the Dante. It is an African animal—that is, Egypt is the country where it is chiefly found. Very little knowledge of it exists among naturalists. It is distinguished from the Indian zebu by having a smaller hump upon the withers and a narrower face; and it is supposed to be the animal represented on the ancient Egyptian tombs.

We next come to the kind of oxen termed Buffaloes; and of these there are several species.

First, there is the Indian buffalo; and it may here be remarked, that when the word buffalo is used, an animal with a huge hump upon its shoulders is usually understood. This is an error, arising, no doubt, from the fact that the bison of America, which has a hump, is generally called a buffalo. But the Indian buffalo has no such protuberance; nor yet the African species. The Indian animal is found both in a domesticated and wild state; but both are clearly of the same species. The wild one is called the Arna, and the tame one Bhainsa, in the language of the natives. The former is of much greater size than the latter—standing, when full-grown, as high as the tallest man! So strong are these animals, that an arna bull has been known to butt down a good-sized elephant with a single stroke of his horns!

It is the Indian buffalo that is found in Italy—where it has been introduced, and is used for draught; its great strength giving it the advantage over horses, especially on the deep miry roads that exist in some parts of the peninsula.

The Manilla buffalo is a smaller variety or species of the arna, inhabiting, as its name imports, the Philippine Islands.

The African buffalo, sometimes known as the Kaffir buffalo, is another of these great oxen, and not the least celebrated of the tribe. It is an inhabitant of Africa, and is found chiefly in the southern half of that continent, from the Cape of Good Hope northwards. It is an animal of vast size and strength; often waging war with the lion, and frequently with man himself. In these encounters the buffalo is but too successful; and it is asserted among the natives of South Africa, that there are more deaths among them, caused by buffalo bulls, than by all the other wild beasts of the country. Like his Indian congener, the shock from the massive horns of an African buffalo is almost irresistible; and both the lion and elephant at times succumb to it.

There is a smaller African species about which less is known. This is the Zamouse or Bush cow, which differs from the true buffalo in having a flatter forehead, and being altogether without the dewlap.

We now come to the American buffalo, or Bison, as it should be called. This is indigenous to North America; and its present range is confined to the great prairies that extend eastward from the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It was formerly found much farther to the east—in fact, to the Atlantic coast; but its limits are now far beyond the meridian of the Mississippi. Hunters (both red and white) have driven it across the Rocky Mountains; and of late years it has been met with in the territory of the Upper Columbia. Its habits are too well-known to call for a description here, and its shaggy coat, with the deformity of its huge shoulder-hump, are familiar to every eye. With one exception, it is the only species of the ox tribe indigenous to America—and it may be added, to North America—since no native bovine animal is known to exist in the southern half of the Transatlantic continent.

The European buffalo—or as it is sometimes called Lithuanian buffalo—bears a considerable resemblance to that of the prairies. In size it is perhaps superior; but the two are much alike in general appearance—especially in their massive form, and the long brown hair, of woolly texture, so thickly set upon their necks and shoulders.

The European buffalo is nearly extinct, and exists only in some of the forests of Lithuanian Poland, where it is rather half-wild than wild; that is, it freely roams the forests, but only as the deer in our own extensive parks, or the white cattle, known as the wild Scotch oxen—in other words, it has an owner.