a 
ee a 
THE AMERICAN BISONS. 141 
their range at the present time (January, 1876), he says: “So viel mir bis 
jetzt bekannt, so geht der Bison 6stlich im Texas nicht mehr tiber die Linie 
hinaus welche von der Miindung der Little Wichita in den Red River in ge- 
rader Richtung fast stidlich bis zur Miindung des Pecan Bayou in den River 
Colorado sich austreckt. Wie sich diese Linie vom Colorado River bis zum 
Rio Grande gestaltet ist schwer zu sagen, doch glaube ich dass von der Miin- 
dung des Pecan Bayou sie mehr eine stark sudwestliche Richtung bis zum 
30° nordlich Breite annehmen wird.” 
Respecting their present southern limit in Texas, a letter written by Mr. 
J. Stevens in answer to my inquiries on this point, and kindly transmitted 
to me by Mr. C. E. Aiken, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, states, on the au- 
thority of Mr. W. H. Case, who has lived for the last two or three years at 
Fort Concho, that buffaloes have of late been quite numerous there in winter, 
and that they were especially so last winter. He says that “after severe 
storms they come in from the north in large numbers,” at which times he 
has seen larger herds there than anywhere else, not excepting Kansas and 
the Indian Territory. East of Fort Concho he says they do not go south of 
the latitude of that post, but that to the westward they go twenty to fifty 
miles further to the southward, but only occasionally. Mr. Stevens adds that 
none are found very far to the westward of Fort Concho, and that none have 
been found for a long time in any part of New Mexico, and that probably 
none ever will be found there again. From the best information I have 
been able to obtain, their present western limit seems to be the eastern 
border of the Staked Plains. 
Their Extermination in Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. — Passing now 
to the region north of Texas, the history of the extermination of the buffalo 
throughout the tier of States adjoining the Mississippi River — namely, 
Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota — will be first given, and afterward 
an account of its extermination over the region 2a the Platte River 
and the northern boundary of Texas. 
According to Nuttall, the bison was still to be met with in Arkansas as late 
as 1819, a few then existing near the Arkansas River, in the present county 
of Conway, not far from the centre of the State.* In a journey from Fort 
Smith southwestward to the Red River, his party also met with large herds 
on Riameche Creek, in the present Indian Territory, near the southwestern 
border of Arkansas.t Major Long found their skulls and other remains at 
* Travels into the Arkansas Country, p. 118. 
+ Ibid., pp. 149, 150. 
