170 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
animal is very rarely to be met with. A few years ago they were accus- 
tomed to pass on the east side of Turtle Mountain, through the Blue Hills 
of the Souris, but of late years their wanderings in this direction have 
ceased; experience teaching them that their enemies, the half-breeds, have 
approached too near their haunts in that direction. 
“The country about the west side of Turtle Mountain, in June, 1858, was 
scored with their tracks at one of the crossing places on the Little Souris, as 
if deep parallel ruts had been artificially cut down the hill-sides. These ruts, 
often one foot deep and sixteen inches broad, would converge from the 
prairie for many miles to a favorite crossing or drinking place; and they are 
often seen in regions in which the buffalo is no longer a visitor. 
“The great western herds winter between the south and north branches 
of the Saskatchewan, south of the Touchwood Hills, and beyond the north 
Saskatchewan in the valley of the Athabaska ; they cross the South Branch 
in June and J uly, visit the prairies on the south side of the Touchwood Hill 
range, and cross the Qu’appelle valley anywhere between the Elbow of the 
South Branch and a few miles west of Fort Ellice, on the Assinniboine. 
They then strike for the Grand Coteau de Missouri, and their eastern flank 
often approaches the Red River herds coming north from the Grand Coteau. 
They then proceed across the Missouri up the Yellow Stone, and return to 
the Saskatchewan and Athabaska as winter approaches, by the flanks of the 
Rocky Mountains. We saw many small herds, belonging to the western 
bands, cross the Qu’appelle valley and proceed in single file towards the. 
Grand Coteau de Missouri in July 1858. The eastern bands, which we had 
expected to find on the Little Souris, were on the main river (Red River is so 
termed by the halfbreeds hunting in this quarter). They had proceeded 
early thither, far to the south of their usual track, in consequence of the 
devastating fires which swept the plains from the Rocky Mountains to Red 
River in the autumn of 1857. We met bulls all moving south, when ap- 
proaching Fort Ellice ; they had come from their winter quarters near the 
Touchwood Hill range. As a general rule the Saskatchewan bands of buf- 
falo go north during the autumn and south during the summer. The Little 
Souris and main river bands go north-west in summer and south-east in au- 
tumn.” * Hind also states that the buffaloes still frequented the eastern 
flank of the Rocky Mountains.t 
* Hind (J. I.), Narrative of the Canadian Red River Expedition of 1857, and of the Assinniboine and 
Saskatchewan Exploring Expeditions of 1858, Vol. II, pp. 107-109. See also Vol. I, pp. 295, 306, 336, 
342, 856. 
+ Ibid. Vol. II, p. 106. 
i 
