The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 118: CHAP. 15. (15.)—THE ANIMALS OF SCYTHIA; THE BISON.

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The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 15. (15.)—THE ANIMALS OF SCYTHIA; THE BISON.

Scythia produces but very few animals, in consequence of the scarcity of shrubs. Germany, which lies close adjoining it, has not many animals, though it has some very fine kinds of wild oxen: the bison, which has a mane, and the urus,1653 possessed of remarkable strength and swiftness. To these, the vulgar, in their ignorance, have given the name of bubalus:1654 whereas, that animal is really produced in Africa, and rather bears a resemblance to the calf and the stag.