Brahmin Cow | 300 days
|
Musk Ox | 9 months

To supply the deficiencies in the foregoing Tables, the results of
original observations are respectfully solicited. Address the Author or
Publisher.

NOTE ON THE AMERICAN BISON.

It was Cuvier, I believe, who first made the statement, that the
American Bison is furnished with _fifteen_ pairs of ribs. In this
particular he has been implicitly followed by every subsequent writer on
the subject. Not being able to refer to a skeleton, and, moreover, never
suspecting any inaccuracy in the statement, I followed the received
account. But since this work has gone to press, I have had the
opportunity of examining two skeletons, by which I find that--

_The American Bison has only_ FOURTEEN _pairs of ribs._

I have, therefore, in the "Table of the Number of Vertebrae," (see p.
152,) set this species down as possessing only that number.

Of the two skeletons referred to (both of which are now in the British
Museum), one is from a female Bison, some years a living resident in the
Zoological Gardens; and the other is from a male, late in the possession
of the Earl of Derby, at Knowsley, in Lancashire.

A corroborative circumstance (amounting, indeed, to a complete proof of
the accuracy of these observations,) is presented by the fact, that, in
both the cases _the number of lumbar vertebrae is precisely_ FIVE; thus
making the true vertebrae to consist of nineteen, which Professor Owen[E]
has shown to be the invariable number possessed by all ruminants.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] See, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Professor Owen's
'Account of his Dissection of the Aurochs.'

APPENDIX

THE FREE MARTIN.

Cows usually bring forth but one calf at a birth; occasionally, however,
they produce twins. John Hunter, in his 'Observations on the Animal
Economy,' says: "It is a fact known, and I believe almost universally
understood, that when a cow brings forth two calves, one of them a
bull-calf, and the other to appearance a cow, that the cow-calf is unfit
for propagation; but the bull-calf grows up into a very proper bull.
Such a cow-calf is called, in this country, a FREE MARTIN, and is
commonly as well known among the farmers as either cow or bull. It has
all the external marks of a cow-calf, namely, the teats, and the
external female parts, called by farmers the bearing. It does not show
the least inclination for the bul