172 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
from the “great central prairie land,’ he says: “Far in the northern forests 
of the Athabasca a few buffaloes may for a time bid defiance to man, but 
they, too, must disappear, and nothing be left of this giant beast save the 
bones that for many an age will whiten the prairies over which the great 
herds roamed at will in times before the white man came.” * 
Mr. Huyshe, writing in 1871 of the region about Fort Garry, says: “Buf 
falo are no longer found nearer than three hundred miles west of Fort 
Garry, and are gradually being driven further and further west by the ad- 
vancing stream of civilization.” + 
In a valuable communication respecting the present and former range of 
the buffalo in the British Possessions, kindly sent me by Mr. J. W. Taylor, 
U.S. Consul at Winnipeg, Mr. Taylor, under date of “United States Con- 
sulate, Winnipeg, B. N. A., April 26, 1873,” writes as follows: “In preparing - 
this reply to your note requesting information respecting the comparative 
numbers and present range of the buffalo, I have consulted Mr. Andrew 
McDermott, an old and intelligent resident of Selkirk Settlement, now known 
as the province of Manitoba. This gentleman, when a very young man, was 
| from 1812 to 1821,—and 
has since been a successful trader. His position in the country is attested 
by his recent appointment as the Manitoba Director of the Canada Pacific 
in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, 
Railway Company. 
“My informant, in 1818, was in the midst of a large herd, only two miles 
west of Fort Garry, where I am writing. His party stood for an hour in the 
midst of the black moving mass, with difficulty preventing themselves, by 
the constant discharge of fire-arms, from being trampled to death. Now, in 
1873, the nearest point where the animal is found is at the Woody Hills, 
upon the International frontier, three hundred miles southwestwardly, while 
you must go five hundred miles west to meet large bands. Formerly a 
variety called the wood buffalo was very numerous in the forests surround- 
ing Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba, the last survivor having been killed only 
two years ago, on Sturgeon Creek, ten miles west of Fort Garry. The wood 
buffalo is smaller than its congener of the plains, with finer and darker wool, 
and a superior quality of flesh. It more resembles the ‘bison’ of naturalists. 
“The Saskatchewan plains, near the Rocky Mountains, have always been 
a great resort of the buffalo, and although the traditions of their immense 
* The Great Lone Land, pp. 315, 320. 
+ Huyshe (G. L.), The Red River Expedition, p. 280, 1871. 
