THe name Bubalus is at this day an un∣certain thing,* 1.1 as also it seemed to be in Pliny his time; nor had it any peculiar sense among the Greeks. Many call divers wild-Oxen, especial there where they were brought from abroad, Bubali. Some make them Goats. We shall distinguish them; calling the Bubalus, that Aristotle calls a time∣rous beast, having blood without fibrae, or string-veins; the same with the African Ox. Scaliger speaks of the Bubalis, whose blood and horns are described by Aristotle. Pliny makes him like a Calfe, or Hart. What is it then? the Gazella? No surely, wherefore what I could learn out of the African stories, I will freely impart.
The African Oxen are scarce so great as our Calves; but very strong, and can endure hard∣ship. I find him called Dant, and Lant, and Elant; Hath an Oxes face, but is much lesse and nimbler; yea, swifter then all other wild-beasts. The hide impenitrable, iron cannot pierce, only a bullet can; White-haired, taken in Summer, because their hoofs are loosned by the burning of the sand. Bellonius describs another African Ox to be old, lesse then the Hart, neater and greater then the wild-Goat; of a square and well-shaped body, goodly to behold, yellow-haired, and so shining and smooth, that she seems sleeked over. The belly hath red-wrinckles, and seems to incline more to yellow then the back, that is dusk-coloured. It is short, but strong thighed; thick and short-necked, and hath a little dew-lap▪ headed like an Ox, the horns black and very crooked as the Gazella, bending like a Moon in the increase, wherewith he cannot well de∣fend himself, so crooked they are. Ox-eared, full, and high-shouldered; the taile, like the Panther, or Camel, Horses, hanging to the hams; black-haired, twice as thick as the Horses; lows like the Ox, but not so lowd. He is not the same, whose picture Horatius Fon∣tana sent to Aldrovandus; for it was of much higher and slender neck, and the horns bend∣ing back, and crooking as in a wild-Goat. It had great ears, the proportion of the head near the beginning of the neck; faced rather like the Kid then the Ox; wherefore reckoned by some among the African Goats. The whole body yellowish, except that the musle and horns were blackish: It was very long-haired.