114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
THE WOOD BUFFALO. 
(Bison americanus, var ?) 
The present is very closely related to the Prairie Buffalo. The 
majority of writers either hold them to be identical, or ignore this 
variety altogether ; but this is owing chiefly to the lack of informa- 
tion regarding the animal, for, curiously enough, this the largest 
land mammal in America, is among those of which the very least is 
known. ; 
The information which is here presented, is gathered from Captain 
Butler’s narrative, and from the lips of two northern hunters, Elzear 
Mignault, who spent twelve years (1£63-’75) on the Peace River, in 
the service of the Hudson’s Bay Co., and Mr. K. N. L. Macdonald, 
a Winnipeg gentleman, who, for ten years, hunted onthe upper 
Mackenzie. The accounts of the two latter agree in all important 
points, except that Mr. Macdonald considers the Wood Buffalo a 
mere variety of the prairie animal, while Mignault, whose experience 
is much greater, maintains, with the Indians, that it is distinct ; 
urging also, in support of his. opinion, that the last Prairie Buffalo 
ever seen in the valley, was killed in, 1866. It was a solitary, 
mangy bull, a complete outcast, and this needed not. to have been his 
condition had the Wood Buffaloes been his immediate kindred. 
All my informants agree that the Wood Buffalo differs, chiefly, 
from its prairie relative in being much larger, and considerably 
darker in color. Mignault adds that its legs are’ proportionately 
shorter, its horns less robust and more curved inwards, its hair is 
shorter, finer, entirely without curl, and all over of a very dark 
brown—almost a black in winter,—but in summer assuming a hue 
similar to that of the prairie animal. 
Capt. Butler, who traversed the Peace River. walle in 1870, 
wrote as follows:  ‘ But, although, the Moose are still as numerous 
on Peace River as they were in days tar removed from the present 
there is another animal which has almost wholly disappeared:” 
The giant form of the Wood Buffalo no longer darkens the steep, 
lofty shores. When first Mackenzie beheld the long reaches of the 
river, the “ gentle lawns,” which alternated with ‘‘ abrupt precipices,” 
were “ enlivened ” by vast herds of buffaloes. This was in 1793. 
Thirty-three vears later, Sir George Simpson also ascended the river 
with his matchless Iroquois crew, yet no Buffalo darkened the lofty 
shores. 
