American Woodland Bison 91 



bison never left the wooded districts, and that when it met the prairie 

 variety on the borderland of their respective habitats, the two kept completely 

 apart. In this respect they resembled the woodland and barren-ground races 

 of the reindeer ; the two races being stated by the aforesaid observer to be 

 as well entitled to rank as sub-species as are the two former. Although 

 they graze occasionally, the woodland bison are stated to subsist chiefly on 

 the leaves and twigs of the birch and willow, whereas the prairie animal is 

 solely a grass-eater. 



Never, apparently, very numerous, the woodland race is now approaching 

 extermination. Mr. H. I. Moberly informed Mr. Rhoads that in 1897 

 he estimated the total number remaining at between 250 and 300 head, 

 which were divided into two herds. One of these bands frequents the 

 districts lying to the north of the lower part of the Peace river, extending 

 from close to the Great Slave Lake at Peace Point, which is about 90 

 miles below Fort Vermilion. The second band is on the upper part of 

 the Hay river, ranging between the Peace and the Liard rivers and 

 along the foot of the Rocky Mountains for a distance of about 250 miles. 



From the tact that the luiropean bison is a forest-dwelling animal, 

 and that the Old World may be regarded as the original home of the 

 group, it seems most probable that the woodland bison is the older type 

 ot the two, the prairie race being a somewhat degenerate later development 

 which has taken to a life in the open country at a comparatively recent date. 

 And it is noteworthy that in the width of the skull this race makes an 

 approach to the fossil form described as B. /atifrons, which occurs typically 

 in Kentucky. It may be well to mention that in his account of the 

 extermination of the bison Mr. Hornaday believed that the woodland 

 race was the smaller ot the two, and that it represented a species in course 

 of evolution from the prairie form. 



