THE AMERICAN BISONS. 137 
northward, however, they still occupied nearly all the Great Plains, from to 
Rocky Mountains almost to the Mississippi River. 
I have as yet met with but few data relating to the extermination of the 
buffalo, either south of the Rio Grande or in Texas, prior to 1840, but since 
that pexiod the record is reasonably full. Beginning with the year 1841, 
we find that at this time Kendall, in travelling north from Austin, Texas, 
first met with buffaloes seventy-five miles north of Austin, on Little River, a 
southern tributary of the Brazos, where he found them in immense herds. 
In speaking of them he says: “There are perhaps larger herds of buffalo at 
present in Northern Texas than anywhere else on the western prairies, their 
most formidable enemies, the Indians, not ranging so low down in large 
parties on account of the whites; but I was told that every year their num- 
bers were gradually decreasing, and their range, owing to the approach of 
white settlers from the east and south, becoming more and more circum- 
scribed.” Kendall also found them numerous on the Brazos, and states that 
they occasionally took shelter in the Cross Timbers, and that he last met 
with them, in going westward, on the upper part of the Big Washita, one of 
the sources of the Red River, near the one hundredth degree of longitude.* 
Kennedy, writing in the same year, says, “The bison is still to be met with 
in the mountainous districts between the Guadeloupe and the Rio Grande.” + 
According to Gregg, however, they had already disappeared east of the Cross 
Timbers as early as 1840.4 
In 1849, in an expedition from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Santa Fé, Lieu- 
tenant J. H. Simpson first saw signs of buffaloes near the 97th meridian, a 
few miles south of the Canadian, but adds that he saw not more than two 
buffaloes on the whole journey. In speaking of the game, he says: “In 
regard to the buffalo, there can be no question that they have been in the 
habit of infesting the route in places during certain seasons of the year. 
Indeed, Gregg mentions them as swarming on the plains on his return trip 
from Santa Fé, in the spring of 1840. During our journey, however, I did 
not see more than two, from the beginning to the end of the trip, and there- 
fore I am not at liberty to hold them up as any certain source upon which 
to rely for subsistence.” § 
* Kendall (G. W.), Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, Vol. I, pp. 78, 79. 
+ Kennedy (Wm.), Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic, Vol. I, p. 122. 
{ Commerce of the Prairies, Vol. I, p. 122. 
§ Congress. Rep., 31st Congr, 1st Session, Senate Ex. Doc., No. 12, pp. 6, 20. 
