140 THE AMERICAN BISONS, 
met with each day appear to be duly chronicled.* We are further led to 
infer the entire absence at this time of buffaloes in Texas by some remarks 
made by Captain Pope, in his General Report, respecting the Comanche 
Indians, whose country was on the head-waters of the Canadian and Red 
Rivers, in the extreme northern part of Texas. He says: “ During the sum- 
mer months nearly the whole tribe migrates to the north, to hunt buffalo 
and wild horses on the plains of the Upper Arkansas.” ¢ 
Captain H. M. Lazelle, 8th U. 8. Infantry, informs me that in 1859 there 
were no buffaloes in New Mexico, nor in Texas west of the 99th meridian, 
but that there were vast numbers in Northern Texas between the meridians 
of 99° and 96°; but that they did not extend so far south as Pope’s old trail 
of 1854.4 
Hence it appears that for quite a number of years the buffaloes nearly 
abandoned Texas, or visited only its northwestern portions, and were of 
somewhat uncertain occurrence, in summer at least, as far north as the Cana- 
dian. Of late, however, they have again become common over a consider- 
able portion of the northwestern part of the State, occasionally extending 
southward along the 100th meridian almost to the Rio Grande. Major- 
General M. C. Meigs, Quartermaster-General of the United States Army, says, 
in some valuable MS. notes on the buffalo,§ that in the winter of 1869-70 
he saw their carcasses near Fort Concho, Texas, “showing that the buffalo 
had been abundant in that neighborhood the previous year.” The prairies 
having been extensively burned that winter about Concho, the buffaloes had 
not appeared within twenty miles of the post that season. He also says 
that in the winter of 1871-72 they extended their migrations westward to 
the Staked Plains. || 
Mr. J. Boll, the well-known entomological collector, also informs me that 
during the winter of 1874-75 they were still more abundant over quite a 
large part of Northern Texas, doubtless in consequence of their persecution 
by the hunters in Southwestern Kansas. Respecting the eastern boundary of 
* Pacific R. R. Exploration and Surveys, Vol. II, Pope’s Exploration of the 32d Parallel, from the Red 
River to the Rio Grande, pp. 51-98. 
+ Ibid., p. 15. 
t Pope’s trail erosses the 96th meridian in about latitude 33° 30’, and strikes the Pecos in longitude 
103° and latitude 31° 30’, at Emigrant Crossing. 
§ For access to this interesting paper I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Elliott Coues, the eminent 
ornitholovist. 
|| MS. Notes on the Buffalo. 
