Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1913 — THE AUROCHS AND THE BISON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE AUROCHS AND THE BISON

HE differentiation between these animals is a subject oKunusual ■ t interest to the sportsmanmaturalJ ist. To trace the origin of the popular misconception that the two names are synonymous, a mistake H n to which even some of our bestknown sportsman of today must v if* H plead guilty, we, have to dive into b- the not always limpid depths of - early mediaeval history. For the event which has probably more to

do than any other with the promulgation of this error was the famous hunt given by Charlemagne to the ambassadors of Haroun-al-Rashld In the dank Hercyian woods that surrounded his hunting lodge, Heristallum. According to the original account by the monk Eginhard of St. Gall, the aurochs were of such terror-instilling appearance to the men from the east that they could not even bear the sight of them, and fled from the emperor’s side. The latter, attacked by the fiercest of these monsters, missed the vital spot, ■with the result that before brave Isambart could, slay it the emperor was slightly wounded tn the Wglr"aTfa“bad““to shreds. Rushing to his side, the assembled courtiers offered to divert themselves of thpir own hose, but the emperor laughingly rejected their offers, declaring that he Intended to show himself In his sorry plight to the fair Hlldegarde, who was a great huntress herself. Needless to say, this adventure proved a mediaeval “scoop” of the gaudiest kind, but in the course of unnumbered retellings the aurochs became a wisent, as was called the European bison, and since that time a perplexing confusion has reigned between these two animals. That the true aurochs, which became eitinct three hundred years ago, was an entirely different animal from the bison, whose name, alas! Is also on the list of animals about to share the auroch’s fate, is now a fact known to all scientific men. To the writer the poor old bison’s pathetic fate appeals more particularly, for when shooting in the Rockies In the seventies of last century he still saw them In herds of ten thousand. But as the men who can claim to have seen the same marvellous sight will before long follow these lordly inhabitants of the wilds to the happy hunting grounds, the study of the past history of these two species has for some people unusual attractions. And not the least Interesting phase of It is the collecting of pictures made at a time when both beasts were still roaming over the “wastes of the earth,*’ or had but recently disappeared. Of .the earliest of all pictures of what was probably meant to be the bison, an interesting article which recently appeared in an Illustrated weekly, in which the roof pictures in the Altamira Cave were reproduced, gave one a capital idea. After a gap of untold centuries we reach the various pictorial records left to us by the chisels, gravers or brushes of the classic ages. Among those who have made important discoveries respecting the distribution of the aurochs. Professor Conrad Keller, the well-known Zurich zoologist, occupies a prominent place. His discoveries In the ruins of the ancient palace of King Minos in Crete of no fewer than sixteen horn-cores and one skull of what unquestionably was the original wild ox of Europe, or aurochs, show that it lived there at one period, and that the famous legend of the mlnotaur has a substratum of truth. From his pages we borrow an illustration of an important fresco in Knossos depicting an aurochs in the act of impaling a help-less-looking victim, while a bold bull-fighter is actually turning a somersault over the back of the beast, a third, possibly female, looker-on attempting to seize the bull's tail, the scene being probably enacted in an arena. It is possible that the Theseus story came from the slaughter of captives tn such exhibitions. Several other pictures have been recently discovered which belong to the Minos period, i. e., between 2000 and 1600 B. C. Professor Keller’s highly instructive writings contain many other illustrations of Bos prlmifenius. , Skipping tens of centuries, we reach the Bestiaries, the r»ost ancient of which originated in the period we touched at the outset when speaking of Charlemagne’s aurochs-hunt. These exceedingly primitive pictorial records do not add much to our Information; “the choice hurts one," as Germans describe that state of uncertainty tn regard to what the monastic artists meant to represent by their crude attempts. Skipping a few more centuries, we at last reach, In the beginning of the fifteenth century, fairly intelligent accounts of the animal's habitat, and are. furnished with drawings presenting featureo sufficiently distinct to indicate, even to eyes accustomed to photographic accuracy, the Identity of the animal the picture means to represent. Very curlpus Is the circumstance, to which, by the way, nobody has so tar draws attention, thatr none °f th® French sporting books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such as ‘‘Roy Modus.” “Gaston Phoebus," “Qace de la Bulgne” pxd “Foutalnes-Guerln," mentions either the

aurochs or the bison by sb much as a word. As the authors of these classics were great sportsmen and close observers, this would support the theory that both these animals had already- then become quite extinct in western Europe. In the sixteenth century, when Europe, so far as art was concerned, had at last been aroused from its mediaeval stupor by the invention of printing, and an extraordinary demand had sprung up for pictorial matter illustrating recent exploration of new worlds and the various forma of the chase, there were produced quite a number of pictures of the aurochs by artists, very few of whom had ever set eyes upon a live wild specimen, though they may have seen captive ones. The one artist of whom we positively know that he had before him at least a stuffed specimen was the Viennese engraver Augustin Hlrschvogel (born in Nurnberg about 1503), who illustrated the famous travel book of Baron Herberstein, the authority most frequently quoted tn connection with the aurochs, for he was absolutely the last intelligent observer who saw the beast In its wild state, and left pictorial records of his impressions. Herberstein was gifted with prescient eyes, for he foresaw that the aurochs was doomed to speedy extinction. Hence on his several expeditions to the unknown Interior of Russia as the ambassador, first of Emperor Maximilian In 1615-18, then on many different occasions as Charles V.’s and Ferdinand’s emissary, he made notes about It, and, what was much more Important, actually brought back with him, some •kins and skulls, which he had mounted In his house in Vienna, and from which Hlrschvogel probably drew his celebrated picture of the aurochs. To differentiate he drew next to .it a picture of a bison. As these two "portraits,” x which have been published scores of times, will be familiar to all Interested In this matter, we will merely quote the inscriptions placed by Her berstein over the two pictures, for it is a perfectly correct differentiation. The picture of ths bison has the following: “I am a Bison, am called by the Poles a Suber, by the Germans a Blsont or Damthfer, and by the Ignorant an aurochs.” Over the woodcut of the aurochs: "I am an Urus which Is called by the Poles a Tur. by thq Germans an Aurochs and until now by the ignorant 41 Bison." The inscriptions in the various editions —Herberstein's volume appteared in several languages—vary triflingly, but the above, which are taken from the edition of 1558. give the sense In the best form. Shortly after Herberstein the Flemish painter Stradanus. who lived and worked for over fifty years tn Florence (from 1553 to 1605), produced a drawing of an aurochs engaged In a terrifle struggle in an arena where he was matched against a non, two wolves and a bear. This original drawing Is not the least Interesting of the twenty odd ancient pictures of the aurochs in the writer's collection. In 1578 the Antwerp publisher Philip Galle published this and on* hundred and three other sporting drawings by the Florentine master, and underneath each of the engravings there is a Latin inscription. The one under the plats reproducing ths drawing

runs: “Some great lords are looking on at a spectacle in the arena. A furious lion with revening fang and claws tears some wild beasts. He lays the wolves low and defeats the ‘Taurus’ in a struggle, while the bear cowers 'a way in terror.” Whether the artist ever wltnessd such a struggle in an arena cannot be ascertained; but it is quite possible, considering their great popularity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The blasts

were caught in pitfalls and transported great distances. The likeness is not a bad one, and in the above collection of prints thpre are three other pictures of aurochs, and a fifth depicting the lassoing of the bubalus on the island of Sardinia. A contemporary and one Hans 801, produced also an interesting engraving of an aurochs hunt which forms the second print of his attractive little set entitled, "Venatlonis, Plscatlonis, et Aucupli typi,” published in 1582 by the same enterprising Antwerp publishers that gave the world the last-named collection. Beneath the aurochs picture we read, in Latin elegiac couplets: “Thus with darts, swords, and light arrows men everywhere drive the horned aurochs into pits.” A rath-

er similar print was produced fourteen years after bmy the Nurnberg engraver, Johann Sibmacher, who etched nine other sporting plates. Then follow, In rapid succession, half a dozen “portraits" by Tempesta, the pupil of Stradanus, one of which prints we reproduce. It shows in what awe the gigantic wild bull was held, for it depicts a formidable-looking machine wherewith the bull could be attacked and brought down. Tempesta’s pictures need not be taken seriously, for his Roman “studio" was nothing but a workshop where apprentice hands turned out a vast mass of prints of little or no value in an enquiry of this sort. His English contemporary of the pen, Edward Topsell, tn his illustrated natural history hodge-podge called the “Hlstorle of FoureFooted Beastes” (1607) only added to the existing confusion. “A Bison,” he says, "is a beast very strange as may appear by his figure prefixed which by many authors Is taken for Urus, some for a Bugle or wild oxe, others, for a Rangifer, and many for the beast Tarantus or Buffe." And, to show that he really meant what he said, he affixes a picture of what is unmistakably a reindeer! Fortunately, however, he adds, as pictures of the bison and of the aurochs, replicas of the two prints by Hlrschvogel out of Herberstein’s "Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentaril.” which, as we have already mentioned, are among the most correct representations published at a period when the aurochs still existed. In England, the belif that th aurochs was a bison-like creature continued throughout the eighteenth century. The picture taken from Samuel Clarke’s "Julius Caesar,” published in 1712, shows what extraordinary Ignorance still prevailed. the animal with antlers like an inverted umbrella being a bison, or Bos gennanus, and the beast in the center an aurochs. The graver of Holzab of Zurich, continues the misconception; indeed, goes one better, for the bison is here turned into an "American aurochs." Of numerous other Illustrations of our two beasts, we have not the space to spegk at length. One of the most characteristic of the latter type is the so-called Hamilton Smith picture of the aurochs. This is a painting, dating, it is believed, from the first quarter of the sixteenth century, discovered in Augsburg not quite a hundred years ago. This painting has mysteriously disappeared, but an accurate copy was made. For the first "modern” picture of the bison that appeared In England we have also to go to German sources, and, strangely enough, to the same city, for it was Augsburg’s most famous animal painter, Rldinger (1687-1767), who drew the first life-like picture. A countryman of his, one J. 8. Muller, who lived many years in London, engraved, in 1768, a fine set of plates representing wild animals after Rldinger's drawings from nature. Among them is one of the bison, called by him the buffalo, and underneath is a lengthy and fairly correct description in English, which be also copied from But this and other Isolated efforts have not entirely prevented the dissemination of the old mistake, for living authorities still tell us, quite seriously, that they have grassed aurochs.