THE AMERICAN BISONS. 99 
been a creation of the excited imagination of the much terrified French- 
man, having no more real foundation than the accounts of other strange 
creatures-found in the narratives of numerous other early explorers of 
America, —a supposition borne out by the general character of De Chal- 
leux’s account of that night’s experiences. 
In the detailed account by M. Réné Laudonniére of Ribaut’s attempt to 
plant a colony on the St. John’s River in Florida, however, no mention of 
this incident reported by the carpenter is mentioned. Laudonniére says 
the only game found was deer, leopards, bears, etc., while in his “descrip- 
tion of the West Indies in generall, but chiefly and particularly of Flori- 
da,” as translated by Hakluyt,* he says, “The Beastes best known in this 
Countrey are Stagges, Hindes, Goates, Deere, Leopards, Ounces, Luserns, 
divers sortes of Wolves, wilde Dogs, Hares, Cunnies, and a certain kinde of 
beast that differeth little from the Lyon of Africa.” f No allusion is made to 
the existence of any animal like a buffalo in Laudonniére’s whole narrative 
of the fortunes of the French in Florida during the period embracing the 
founding and abandonment of Fort Caroline, covering a period of five years 
g ’ § a} 
‘and quite extended explorations along the St. John’s River. 
Professor Wyman also quotes Buckingham Smith as saying, in a note to 
his (Smith’s) translation of the “Memoir of Fontaneda respecting Florida” 
(p. 49), “The bison appears to have ranged in considerable numbers through 
Middle Florida a hundred and fifty years ago. It was considered in 1718 
that the Spanish garrison at Fort San Marco, on a failure of stores, might 
subsist on the meat of the buffalo.” The text in Fontaneda’s Memoir (writ- 
ten about 1575), to which this note refers, contains the following: “The 
men of Abalachi go naked, and the women have waistbands of the straw 
that. grows from the trees, which is like wool, of which I have given some 
account before; they eat deer, wolves, woolly cattle, and many other animals.” + 
Smith in his commentary on this passage cites Barcia as authority for mak- 
ing this passage a reference to the buffalo. But I find nothing in Barcia 
that seems to refer to the occurrence of the buffalo within the region 
embraced by the present boundaries of Florida. 
Professor Wyman further cites Stow (“p. 19”) as saying, “The buffalo is 
found in the savannahs, or natural meadows of the interior parts,” but as no 
title is given of Stow’s work I have been unable to find it in order to ascer- 
* Voyages, etc., Vol. III, pp. 868 — 384. 
t Ibid., p 369, 
{ Smith’s Fontaneda, p. 27. 
