Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1913-01-24

er similar print was produced fourteen years
after bmy the Nurnberg engraver, johann SID
macher, 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. 1t shows IN
what awe the gigantic wild bull was held, FOR IL
depicts a formidable-looking machine Wherewlth
the bull could be attacked and brought down.
Tempesta's pictures need not be taken seriously,
for his Roman studio was nothing but a work
shop 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, in his illustrated natural
history hodge.podge called the Historic OF Foure-
Footed Beastes' 1607) only added to the exist
ing confusion. "A Bison" he says, lis a beast
very strange as may appear by his figure pre-
fixed which by many authors is takell 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 aflxes a picture of what is unmistak-
ably a reindeer. Fortunately, however. he adds.
as pictures of the bison and Of the aurochs, re-
pleas of the two prints by Hirschvogel out Of
Herberstein's "Rerum Moscoviticarum Common
tarii,' which, as we have already mentioned. are
among the most correct representations pub
lished at a period when the aurochs still existed.
In England. the belif that tn aurochs was a
bison-like creature continued throughout the
eighteenth century, The picture taken from Sam
uel Clarke's Julius Caesar" published in 1712.
shows what extraordinary ignorance still pre-
vailed. the animal with antlers like an inverted
umbrella beng a olson, or BOS SerFnanuS.- ana
the beast in the center an aurochs. The graver
of Holzab of Zurich, continues the misconcep-
ton: 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 speak at length. One
of the most characteristic of the latter type is
the so-called Hamilton Smith picture of the au-
rochs. 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 dis
appeared, but an accurate copy was made. For
the first modern" picture of the bison that APP.
peared in England we have also TO go TO Ger
man sources. and. strangely enough. to the same
city, for it was Augsburgs most famous animal
painter, Ridinger G697-176O. who drew the first
life-like picture. A countryman of his, one J S
Muller, who lived many years in London, engrav-
ed, in 175S. a fine set of plates representing wild
animals after Ridinger'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 he
also copied from Ridinger. But this and other
isolated efforts have not entirely prevented the
dissemination of the old mistake, for living au-
thorities still tell us, quite seriously. that they
have erased aurochs.