104 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
dred miles above the Falls of St. Anthony;* and Schoolcraft reports their 
existence in the same vicinity as late as 1820. On the map accompanying 
Schooleraft’s narrative of his expedition to the sources of the Mississippi 
River, he has marked the plains above the Falls of St. Anthony as the “ Buf 
falo Plains”; and in the text he says: “Here also [mouth of De Corbeau 
River] the Buffalo Plains commence, and continue down on both sides of 
the river to the Falls of St. Anthony.”t The buffaloes may never have 
existed in Northeastern Wisconsin, though they probably ranged over the 
prairies of the western and southern portions of the State. They were not 
met with, however, even there by the first European explorers of that 
region. 
Father Marquette does not appear to have met with them in crossing from 
Green Bay to the Wisconsin River, in 1678, nor did he see them in his sub- 
sequent descent of that river.t La Hontan, in 1687, also found none on 
either the Fox or Wisconsin Rivers, first meeting with them on the Missis- 
sippi not far above the mouth of the Wisconsin.§ Marquette first found 
them on the Mississippi River, in latitude “41° 28’,” in July, 1673. “Having 
descended the River,” he says, “as far as 41° 28’, we find that turkeys have 
taken the place of game, and the Pisikious that of other beasts. We call 
the Pisikious wild buffaloes, because they very much resemble our domestic 
oxen.”|| Following this is a description of the “pisikious,” or buffaloes, and 
the uses made of them by the Indians; and he adds, “ they graze upon the 
banks of rivers, and I have seen four hundred in a herd together.” ]_ Hen- 
nepin, Marest, Gravier, Charlevoix, and other Jesuit missionaries appear not 
to have met with it on the St. Joseph’s River, nor anywhere in Southern 
* Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, etc., Pt. I, App. p. 53. 
+ Narrative Journal of Travel to the Sources of the Mississippi, etc., p. 275. 
+ In an English translation of Marquette’s narrative of his discoveries (French’s Hist. Coll. of Lou- 
isiana, Part I, p. 284), we find the following passage: in speaking of the Wisconsin (“ Mesconsin”) he 
says: “ The country through which it flows is beautiful; the groves are so dispersed in the prairies that it 
makes a noble prospect”; and he adds: “ We saw neither game nor fish, but roebuck and buffaloes in 
great, numbers.” Mr. J. G. Shea says: “ The French word here is vaches, which has generally been trans- 
lated bison or buffalo.” In this instance, Mr. Shea says, it is clearly a mistake, as Marquette and his party 
had not yet reached the buffalo grounds, and the missionary afterwards deseribes the animal when he 
meets it. — Discoveries and Explorations in the Mississippi Valley, p. 16. 
§ La Hontan, Voyages, Eng. ed., Vol. I, pp. 111, 112. 
|| As Henderson has remarked, “ Father Marquette was doubtless the first white man who penetrated 
to the habitat of the buffalo by way of the Great Lakes, although, according to Marquette, their skins had 
been previously exported to Europe.” — Am. Naturalist, Vol. VI, p. 82. 
q French’s Historical Collection of Louisiana, Part II, p. 285. 
annem 
