THE AMERICAN BISONS. 83 
small, but all covered with fine timber and full of deer, bears, wild cows,* 
which supply abundance of provisions necessary for the travellers, who find 
it everywhere, and sometimes entire herds of fallow deer.” + 
We have here a term (vaches sawvages) employed which was often used 
by the early French writers to designate the buffalo, and also the account of 
large herds being seen, which seems still further to imply that the animals 
were unquestionably buffaloes, yet the locality is one which was frequently 
passed over by travellers during the previous fifty years, not one of whom 
mentions the occurrence of the buffalo on the St. Lawrence, nor is any men- 
tion of its occurrence there made by subsequent writers. The region is, 
furthermore, a heavily wooded country, situated several hundred miles from 
the prairies, and from the most easterly known range of the buffalo. These 
facts alone tend to render these accounts improbable, but fortunately we are 
not left in doubt as to the character of the animals here mentioned, for in 
the sequel of Father Le Moine’s Journal the following passages render it 
certain that the animals referred to were either deer or elk : — 
“1* day of Sept. I never saw so many deer, but we had no inclination 
to hunt. My companion killed three, as if against his will. What a pity! 
for we left all the venison there, reserving the hides and some of the most 
delicate morsels. 
“2"* of the month. Travelling through vast prairies, we saw in divers 
quarters immense herds of wild bulls and cows;t their horns resemble in some 
respects the antlers of the stag. 
43) and A”. Our game does not leave us; it seems that venison and game 
follow us everywhere. Droves of twenty cows plunge into the water, as if 
to meet us. Some are killed, for sake of amusement, by blows of an axe.” § 
From the context we learn that the locality was but a few leagues above 
Montreal, on the St. Lawrence. These bands of “bulls and cows” were 
doubtless elks ( Cervus canadensis ). || 
* “Vaches sauvages.” Relation de la Nouv. France en l’année 1665, pp. 49, 50. Mr. J. G. Shea also 
observes: “ The animal called by the Canadian French vache sauvage was the American elk, or moose,” 
and cites Boucher (Hist. Nat. du Canada) as authority. “Boucher,” says Shea, “expressly states that 
the buffaloes were found only in the Ottawa country, that is, in the far West, while the vache sauvage, 
or Original and the ane sauvage, or Caribou, were seen in Canada.”— Discovery and Exploration of the 
Mississippi Valley, p. 16, footnote. 
t Documentary History of New York, Vol. I, p. 62. 
¢ The original says, “orand troupeaux de beufs & de vaches sauvages.” — Rel. etc., 1653 - 54, p. 90. 
§ Ibid., pp. 43,44. Translated from Relation de la Nouv. France, 1653 —54, pp. 95, 96. 
|| Hunters, both in Northern New England and in the West, commonly speak of the male moose and 
elk as “ bull moose ”’ and “ bull elk,” and the females as “cow moose” and “cow elk.” 
