1896.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 179 



is little doubt that from some commanding point in that locality, 

 Boon made these observations, and that they related to both the 

 States upon whose common boundary line he then stood. 



While at Allardt on the high plateau of Fentress County, I con- 

 versed with Mr. Bruno Gernt, who stated that he had heard from 

 old residents in that country that buffaloes once abounded in the 

 Obey River valleys of Fentress and Overton Counties. Writing to 

 Mr. Gernt for more definite information, he referred me to other 

 gentlemen on the subject who have failed to respond to my letters. 

 Mr. Gernt says, however, he is informed that an old resident, now 

 dead, named John Young, killed the last buffalo in Fentress County 

 but he does not give the date of its capture. 



In West Tennessee the buffalo seems to have been unknown, so 

 far at least, as history, tradition or remains have given evidence. 

 This condition of affairs, if a fact, seems unaccountable from a 

 faunal or geographical standpoint, as the flora of much of this 

 division of the State is almost precisely like that of the east bank 

 of the Tennessee River, which was frequented by buffaloes. That the 

 river coiild form any great barrier to the passage of this animal 

 from Middle to West Tennessee is not credible, when we remem- 

 ber that they had already crossed the Cumberland, and have been 

 known to swim waters even more formidable in the valleys of the 

 Missouri and Red River during their migrations. 



The absolute silence of Davy Crockett on this subject, is very 

 significant proof of the absence of the buffalo on the western border 

 of the State. Mr. Miles thus comments on the matter : " I have often 

 thought of and asked in the last forty years about bufialoes in this 

 section ; never met any one who ever heard of a buffalo here, or 

 saw indications that they ever were. * * * Blue grass is not 

 indigenous to our section and I doubt if buffaloes were ever numer- 

 ous here as in Kentucky and Middle Tennessee, though certainly 

 there must have been isolated specimens. I never heard of the 

 remains of one, nor did they have roads or wallows, which the only 

 writers on Kentucky and Middle Tennessee tell of." 



The reader is referred to later remarks on the elk for refer- 

 ence to the bisons once kept on the Belle Meade farm by General 



Harding. 



Family CERVIDJE. 



Genus DORCELAPHUS Gloger. 



3. Dorcelaphus virginianus (Bodd.). Virginia Deer. 



When we consider the large amount of wild land in the three 



