1897.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 495 



mountain and woodland animal, should it be proven that such en- 

 vironment was the chosen and constant habitat of this so-called 

 race, would tend to develop just the differences claimed to distin- 

 guish them. 



In 1885 Mr. E. T. Seton (now Ernest E. Thompson) read a paper 

 on "The Ruminants of the Northwest" before the Canadian Insti- 

 tute, Toronto. An extract from this paper relating to " The Wood 

 Buffalo" was published in 1886 in the Proceedings of the Institute, 

 pages 114 to 117. This paper adds somewhat to our previously 

 published knowledge of the animal in question, but has the same 

 defects which embarrassed the investigations of previous authors, 

 absolute lack of material for comparison. Mr. Seton mentioned 

 that both the Indians and a Mr. E. Mignault, who spent twelve 

 years on the Peace River in the service of the Hudson Bay Co., 

 aver the Wood Buffalo to be a distinct species, keeping entirely 

 aloof from their plains relatives. As proof of this he says that 

 " the last Prairie Buffalo ever seen in the valley was killed in 186C. 

 It was a solitary, mangy bull, a complete outcast, and this need not 

 to have been his condition had the Wood Buffaloes, [of that same 

 region] been his immediate kindred." Mr. Seton seems convinced 

 that his "Wood Buffalo" is a good "variety," but, like all who 

 wrote before him, dares not assign it a distinctive scientific name, 

 calling it " Bison amerieanus var. ?" He also advances the theory 

 (and there are many reasons for adopting it) that our plains buffalo 

 is a degenerate, modern offshoot of the ancient woodland stock, 

 which last named species exclusively inhabited the country before 

 the prairies, as such, existed. Parallel instances which he cites in 

 support of this theory are the timber and prairie wolves of the same 

 regions and the timber and barren-ground caribou. 



In Chapter X, pages 141 to 159 of his book, " Barren Ground of 

 Northern Canada," Warburton Pike, Esq. describes a hunt for 

 Wood Buffalo in February, 1890, on a tributary of Buffalo River, 

 about 50 miles south of its outlet into the southern waters of Great 

 Slave Lake. This is the first authentic published account, written 

 by an eye witness, of the country exclusively inhabited by the Wood 

 Bison, and the only specific account of a hunt for this race of buf- 

 falo by so competent an observer. 



Mr. Pike is " inclined to think that the very slight difference in 

 appearance [of the Wood Buffalo] is easily accounted for by cli- 

 matic influences, variety of food and the better shelter of the woods." 



