ever we came near the place where they were concealed, and as long as we remained in the vicinity, constantly flew to and fro above us, uttering her note of alarm. As soon as the young birds were fully feathered, two were killed for the purpose of examining their plumage in this state; and we found that after they had been fired at once or twice, they became more wary, and eventually we had some little difficulty in approaching sufficiently near to effect our purpose. The moult appears to commence somewhat early in old birds; a male that was killed on the 25th of July, was completely covered with pen feathers, and the belly, from incubation, almost entirely bare. The stomachs I dissected were all filled with the elytra and remains of small coleopterous insects, which in all probability constitute their principal food during the breeding season. These birds I understand are getting every year more and more scarce in the neighbourhood of the lakes; and from the numbers that are annually killed by the anglers at Keswick and the vicinity, (their feathers having long been held in high estimation for dressing artificial flies), it is extremely probable that in a few years they will become so exceedingly rare, that specimens will be procured with considerable difficulty. I have subjoined the names of some of the principal mountains in this county, on which dottrels have been known to breed, and I have also added, as far as practicable, their elevation above the level of the sea, under the idea that this information may prove of some utility to naturalists who may hereafter feel inclined to investigate the manners of this species in the same district. The relative positions of these mountains may be seen at a single glance, on referring to Greenwood's excellent Map of the county of Cumberland. Helvellyn,........... ..3055 Whiteside, Whatson Dod,.......... Saddleback, Skiddaw,. Carrock Fell,.. Grasmoor,. ......... ..2787 3022 Feet above the level of the sea.* .2110 .2756 .2292 .1114 Robinson, Gold Scalp,... Great Gavel,............2925 J Before I conclude this paper I will briefly describe and also offer a few observations on the eggs found on Whiteside * Carrock Fell, I have reason to believe, is the lowest of these mountains, consequently all those whose elevation is not given, will exceed 2110 feet in height. and Robinson. All these eggs were very similar with respect to colour and markings, but differed a little in size and formation, varying from 12 to 14% of an inch in length, and in breadth from 1 to 1, the ground colour wine yellow, varying a little in tint, and all thickly covered with large blotches and spots of different shades of brownish black, particularly on the obtuse end. Hence it appears that they differ a good deal from those seen and described by Dr. Heysham, their ground colour being a dirty clay. The eggs of the dottrel however figured by Schinz, Thienemann and Polydore Roux, also vary in this as well as in other respects; it is therefore extremely probable that the eggs of this bird are subject to considerable variation. DESCRIPTION of a young dottrel, a few days old, captured alive on Robinson, July 5th, 1835. Front of the head, throat, a broad space round the neck, and all the under parts covered with a whitish down. Top of the head, occiput, and all the upper parts of the body, dark brown, mixed here and there with bufforange, and whitish down. The few feathers that have made their appearance on the breast, belly, and flanks, buff-orange, slightly spotted with greyish brown; a few feathers on the back blackish brown, edged with reddish white. Bill black. Irides very dark brown. Legs and toes pale cinereous, slightly tinged with green. DESCRIPTION of a young female, (by dissection), three weeks or a month old, killed on Robinson, July 25th, 1835. Forehead, throat, and sides of the face cream yellow, covered with small spots and fine streaks of greyish brown. Crown of the head, occiput, and also the feathers on the back, dark brown, all more or less broadly edged with buff-orange. Scapulars and wing-coverts olive-green, deeply edged with reddish white. Tail the same, finely margined with white, the centre feathers broadly tipped with reddish white, and the three lateral ones on each side ending in a large irregular whitish spot. Sides of the neck, flanks, and a broad band above each eye, buff-orange, the former finely streaked with greyish brown. Breast cinereous, slightly tinged with reddish white, and marked on each side with large spots of olive-green. Belly white, finely spotted here and there with greyish brown. Bill black. Irides dark brown. Legs pale olive-green, soles, bright yellow. Carlisle, September, 1835.* *Communicated March, 1838, by the Author.-Ed. ART. II. On the Influence of Man in modifying the Zoological Features of the Globe; with Statistical Accounts respecting a few of the more important Species. By W. WEISSENBORN, Ď. Ph. (Continued from Page 256). DESCRIPTION, HABITS, &c. OF THE BOS URUS. Of all animals now existing and sufficiently well known, the American bison, (Bos Americanus), bears the greatest resemblance to the Bos urus. This resemblance is close enough to have induced even Pallas to take both for the same species, and I think a description of either ought to begin with comparing one with the other. The comparative shortness of the legs, tail, and horns, the weakness of the croup, the somewhat greater breadth of the forehead, and the orbits, which descend less, and have less projecting rims in the Bos Americanus, constitute differences of outward structure, which to a somewhat practised eye give to that species an aspect, by which it may be at once distinguished from the Bos urus. Besides, the B. Americanus has fifteen pairs of ribs and as many dorsal vertebra, and only four lumbar vertebræ, whereas in the B. urus, the numbers are respectively fourteen and five. Moreover the American ox has not the same antipathy to the B. taurus as the zubr; it may be used to produce a mixed breed with the domesticated cattle, and is, at all events, more tameable, as numbers of them are kept in the paddocks of the western states of North America, whereof I obtained certain information from Mr. W. Lenz, who returned from his travels in America but a few months ago; and lastly, I cannot find in any work I have consulted on the subject, that the B. Americanus smells of musk. The original natural size of the two animals is about the same, the weight of the two animals being about a ton. I shall now compare the B. urus with one of his congeners better known to European readers, and by entering more into detail, endeavour to bring, at the same time, many essential parts of the description of the former to the notice of the reader. Let us represent to ourselves a bull, whose upper mesial line, beginning at the atlas and ending at the root of the tail, does not approach to the horizontal, but slopes downwards, both before and behind the fourth to the seventh dorsal vertebræ, (or those which answer to the withers), namely, before, at an angle of about 30°, and behind, at one of about 15°. The chest of the B. urus appears therefore considerably higher, and the whole of its fore-quarters more developed, than in the tame ox, whilst the hind-quarters are not only more gracefully built, but appear the more so from contrast, particularly as the hair about the neck, withers, chest, apd shoulders, is much longer than that which covers the posterior part of the trunk. The elevation of the anterior part of the back in the zubr, is chiefly caused by the great length of the spinous processes of the dorsal vertebra, in which also that of the last vertebra colli partakes in a great measure.— Those of the fourth to the seventh vertebræ are, however, not the longest, though corresponding to the greatest height of the back; that of the second dorsal vertebra is the longest of all, measuring 16 inches in length, French measure, and upwards, whereas in the common ox, it is never more than half that length, and in the fossil B. primigenius, if reduced, by subtracting one sixth, to the size of a zubr, where it is 16 in. long, it would not be more than 12. The zubr has fourteen pairs of ribs, and only five lumbar vertebræ, whereas the B. taurus, as well as the B. primigenius, and most other species, has thirteen and six respectively. Besides, the skeleton of the zubr is of a lighter make. The head of the zubr is smaller and shorter in proportion than that of the common ox. The surface of the occiput forms an obtuse angle with the frontal bone in the former, and an acute one in the latter. The forehead of the zubr is broader, owing to the great depth of the orbits, which project like tubes and are convex, whereby the facial angle becomes greater than in the B. taurus. The horns do not rise, as in the latter, at the crown of the head, or at the ends of the line separating the occiput from the frontal bone, but about opposite the middle of the convexity of the forehead, or two inches before the line just mentioned. Of their form we shall speak afterwards, as those of the B. taurus have no constant form whatever.— The tube-like orbits, which are narrower at the rim than in their hollow part, have such a direction that the eyes, though at a greater distance from each other, point less sideways than in the B. taurus. The bare part of the muzzle in the zubr, *Bojanus states that the male Bos urus has fourteen, but the female only thirteen pairs of ribs. But he is contradicted by two later observers, Jarocky, (1. c. p. 37), and Eichwald, (Naturhistorische Skitze von Lithauen), who most positively ascribe fourteen pairs of ribs to both sexes. How so accurate an observer as Bojanus was led into an error, which must have struck him as very paradoxical, it is difficult to explain, unless we suppose that the zubr cow which he obtained for the museum of Wilna, was a monstrum per defectum. However, the circumstance ought not to be overlooked, that only the skeleton of the male, presented at the same time by the Emperor Alexander, was prepared for the museum, whereby a mistake on the part of Bojanus becomes somewhat less improbable. As for the minor differences in the skeletons of the two species, I must refer the reader to that author's monograph of the urus, as well as to Cuvier. only extends over the middle of the upper lip, and the borders of the nostrils, whereas in the B. taurus it forms a broad surface. As for the teeth, the number of which is the same in all the species, those of the zubr are better adapted to scrape, as well as to triturate hard substances, as bark and branches. The incisors of the zubr are therefore stronger and rougher above, and the last three molars, which increase in size posteriorly, (but are nearly of the same size throughout in the B. taurus), are furnished with an additional tubercle, rising from the middle of their crowns. The ears and eyes are smaller, and the mouth is more contracted in the zubr.Its chest is not only higher, but also wider and without a dewlap. The scrotum is never pendulous, but wrinkled, and the testes are scarcely larger than those of a ram. The udder and teats of the zubr cow are far less developed, and the tail of the Bos urus with its brush, which measures from 10 to 11 inches, does not come lower down than the hock joint. The legs of the zubr are, however, higher than those of the Bos taurus. The hair of the latter is stiff, lying close to the skin and much of the same description throughout; that of the zubr is softer, standing off at an obtuse angle, and of two vedifferent sorts. ry After these comparisons the rest of my description will refer to the zubr alone. The size of this animal in its present abode is considerably less than it was formerly; a deterioration which may be observed in all those wild herbivorous animals, whose liberty is checked by the approach of human cultivation, and which no longer have a perfectly uncontrolled choice of locality and pasture. The six-years-old male lately obtained for the museum of Wilna, measured only 6 ft. 11 French inches from the crown of the head to the tuber ischii, and 4 ft. 4 inches from the highest part of the os sacrum, down through the trochanter to the calces, whereas the height at the withers was 4 ft. 9 in. Yet we read that in 1595 an auerochs, 13 ft. long and 7 ft. high, was killed near Friedrichsburg; and another specimen, killed along with forty-one others, in the forest of Bialowicza, by King Augustus III, of Poland, as late as 1752, weighed 1450 tbs., as testified on a monument erected on the spot where the animal was slain.— Count Joh. Sigismundus held a hunting party in 1612, when eight auerochs were killed, the largest of which weighed 1770 Ibs. And in the more remote ages we may suppose that the old bulls sometimes grew to a size, which makes the statement *See Henneberger, 'Erklärung der grossern preussichen Landtafel,' ii. 3. 251. Here the head was probably included in the measurement. |