226 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
early part of the eighteenth century. That it was not there earlier seems 
to me fully evident, and that if it was ever found there it must have existed 
there at a comparatively recent date and for only a very short period. As 
already stated (see page 101), I have met with no writer who claims to 
have himself seen buffaloes within the present limits of Florida, though if 
it ever occurred there an unquestionable record of the fact will yet doubt- 
less be found. 
The Buffalo in Mississippi.— On pages 102 and 115 I state that I had been 
unable to find any evidence of the former existence of the buffalo south 
of the Tennessee River, and the statement of Du Pratz that the Indians of 
Lower Louisiana leave that country in winter to hunt the buffalo is cited in 
proof of its supposed absence from that region. Du Pratz’s statement in full 
on this point is as follows: “This buffalo is the chief food of the natives, and of 
the French also for a long time past..... They hunt this animal in winter ; for 
which purpose they leave Lower Lowsiana and the river Missisipi, as he can- 
not penetrate thither on account of the thickness of the woods; and besides 
loves to feed on long grass, which is only to be found in the meadows of the 
high lands.”* This notice appears in the chapter devoted to an account of 
the quadrupeds of Louisiana, and being misled by the import of the term 
Lower Louisiana, which at that time was generally applied to all the Lower 
Mississippi country, or that portion south of the 35th parallel, and by the 
fact of the almost unquestionable absence of the buffalo from the country 
south of the Tennessee at the time De Soto crossed this region in 1539 and 
1540, I inadvertently omitted to examine with due care the earlier portions 
of Du Pratz’s work. My attention, however, has since been kindly directed 
(by my friend, Mr. L. Carr) to other reference by Du Pratz to the buffalo as 
a former inhabitant of a considerable portion of the present State of Mis- 
sissippi. In his detailed account of the “Lands of Louisiana” Du Prat 
says: “From the sources of the river of the Paska Cgoulas, quite to those 
of the river of Quesoneté, which falls into the Lake Sf. Lowis, the lands are 
light and sterile, but something gravelly, on account of the neighborhood 
of the mountains, that lye to the North. This country is intermixt with 
extensive hills, fine meadows, numbers of thickets, and sometimes woods, 
* The History of Louisiana, etc., English Ed. Vol. I, p. 49. The original reads as follows: “Ce 
Beuf est la viande principale des Naturels, & a fait long-tems aussi celle des Frangois. . . . - On va a 
la chasse de cet Animal dans V’hyver, & on s’écarte de la Basse Louisiane & du Fleuve S. Louis, parce 
qwil ne peut y pénétrer, & cause de l’épaisseur des Bois, & que d’ailleurs il aime la grande herbe qui ne se 
trouve que dans les Prairies des terres hautes.” — [Histoire de la Louisiane, etc. Tom. HU, p. 67. 
aah nN rm 
