THE BISON. 27 



not easier to determine. In Hakluyts' collection 

 we have an extract of a letter from Mr. Anthonie 

 Parkhurst, in 1578, in which he uses these words; 

 in the Island of Newfoundland there " are mightie 

 beastes, like to camels in greatnesse, and their feete 

 cloven, I did see them farre off, not able to dis- 

 cerne them perfectly, but their steps shewed that 

 their feete were cloven and bigger than the feete of 

 camels. I suppose them to be a kind of buffes, 

 which I read to bee in the country s adjacent and 

 very many in the firme land,"* In the same col- 

 lection, p. 689, we find, in the account of Sir 

 Humphrey Gilbert's voyages, which commenced in 

 1583, that there are said to be in Newfoundland, 

 " buttolfles, or a beast, it seemeth by the tract and 

 foote, very large in the mauner of an oxe." It may, 

 however, be questioned whether these were not 

 musk oxen, instead of the common buffalo or bison 

 of our prairies. We have no authority of any weight, 

 which warrants us in admitting that the buffalo 

 existed north of Lakes Ontario, Erie, &c. and east 

 of Lake Superior. From what we know of the 

 country between Nelson's River, Hudson's Bay, 

 and the lower Lakes, including New South "Wales 

 and Upper Canada, we are inclined to believe that 

 the buffalo never abounded there, if indeed any were 



* The principal navigations, voyages, and discoveries of 

 the English nation, &c. by Richard Hakluyt, London, 1589, 

 p. 676. 



