134 MAMMALS

inged Indian gaur, B. gaurus. Another remarkable
species, wild and domestic, is B. grunniens, the yak
of Tibet, so conspicuous for its long hair and bushy
tail. The European bison, 5. donassus, is now extinct
except in the Caucasus and the preserves of
Lithuania. The American bison, B. americanus, is in
much the same state; the last herd was destroyed in
1883, but there are a few left in Athabasca, and about
two hundred and fifty are preserved in the Yellow-
stone Park. It is the biggest American mammal, but
is much smaller than the extinct B. latifrons, whose
remains are found in Texas. The Cape buffalo,
B. caffer, is also going the way of the big oxen. The
Indian buffalo, B. dubalus, with the tremendous
horns—there is a pair at South Kensington measuring
over twelve feet from tip to tip—is also thinning out
rapidly. The musk-ox, Ovzbos moschatus, is a sheep-
like ox, still found in herds in Arctic America, but
extinct in Europe and Asia: the fate of all these big
animals being the same—they domesticate or perish.
There are eleven species of wild sheep now living,
one of them being African and one American. The
American species, or ‘bighorn, Oves canadensis, being
perhaps the best known to sportsmen. The horns of
this species are very large and weigh as much as
forty pounds, the basal girth occasionally reaching
nineteen inches ; but, like all horns, they shrink very
much in the dry air of museums. At one time the
bighorn was said to use these enormous horns as
buffers to fall upon when jumping from high crags,
but this motive is now laughed at. It is, however, an