34 



In different localities under different conditions were difft'rent forms of life. 

 We have noted this regarding plants. It was so concerning animals. 



American Bisons ( BisoH americanufi (rmelin), generally known as Buffaloes, 

 ranged in countless numbers over the meadows and prairies at the time we first 

 learn of them. The Whitewater and Miami vallej's formed routes to the ( )hio River 

 and the Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. The Wahash Valley Ijecame another avenue 

 for their journeys, and the old trail from the prairies to the Kentucky barrens 

 crossed the Wabash River below Vincennes. Over this wide, well-marked road, 

 evidences of wiiich still remain, countless thousands of Bisons passed annually. 

 From the Ohio River to Big Bone Lick was a wide road which these animals had 

 beaten "spacious enough for two waggons to g(» abreast."^ Evidence of their for- 

 mer abundance is preserved in the swamps about this lick. In places their bones 

 are massed to tiie deiith of two feet or more, as close as the stones of a pavement, 

 and so beaten down by succeeding herds as to make it difficult to lift them from 

 their beds. ^ At the Blue Licks in Kentucky we are told in 1784: "The amazing 

 herds of buffaloes which resort thither, l)y their size and number, fill tiie traveler 

 with amazement and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they 

 have made from all quarters, as if leading to some populous city; the vast space 

 of land ;i round these springs desolated as if by a ravaging enemy, and hills re- 

 duced to plains, for the land near these springs is chiefiy hilly. "^ In the region 

 that was densely wooded the Bisons were only seen as transients, but in the 

 meadows and prairies they abounded. From the summit of the hill at Ouiatanon 

 we are told, in 171S: "Nothing is visible to the eye but prairies full of 

 buff aloes. "■* 



P>lk (Ce;-i;iw canadetisi!^ P^r.xleben) were common, and Deer (Cariaciis virgin- 

 ianiis Gray) still more so. Bear and wolves were quite abundant. In one favor- 

 ite locality, it is reported, a good hunter, without much fatigue to himself, could 

 supply daily one hundred men with meat. Beaver ( Ca-^^oi' /(6er L. ) were found 

 in many localities. Especially favorable to them were the more level regions to 

 the northward. Otter {Lutru canadensis Sabine) were quite common, while the 

 Wild Cat (Lynx rufiis Raf.), Canada Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatus F. Cuvier) 

 and Panther (Felix concolor L i were numerous. 



1. Journal of Colonel Croghan: Butler's History of Kentucky, 1834, p. 368. 



2. Dr. A. W. Bravton: Rept. of Geolosieal Survey of Ohio, Vol. IV, Pt. I, Mammals, 

 pp. 75-77. 



3. W. T. Ilorniiday: Rept. U. S. National Museum, 1887, pp. 387, 388. 



4. Paris Documents, 1718: Colonial Hist. X. Y., Vol. IX. p. 891. 



