MAMMALS OF PREHISTORIC TIMES 



205 



Former Distribution. — The bison, or buffalo as it is more 

 frequently called, once occurred throughout the prairies ot 

 Illinois, but probably never so abundantly as on the plains west 

 of the Mississippi River. Early explorers record the bison mostly 

 from along river banks, probably because these men usually trav- 

 eled by way of water courses. They referred to "extraordinary" 

 numbers of this animal and wrote of the prairies "abounding" in 

 buffaloes. Large herds to these explorers apparently were made 

 up of 200 to 300 individuals, not of several thousands, as in the 

 West. 



Numerous buffalo trails crossed and recrossed the prairies 

 of the Illinois country. Perhaps the best known were those from 

 Vincennes, Indiana, which invaded the lush central prairies 

 from the east and continued on almost directly westward toward 

 the Mississippi River. 



By 1814, the bison had entirely disappeared from the Illinois 

 territory, leaving behind their countless well-trodden paths. 



At present, bison are kept in a semidomesticated condition 

 on a few farms in Illinois. 



SOME MAMMALS OF PREHISTORIC TIMES 



Many thousands of years ago, there lived in the region of 

 what is now known as Illinois certain kinds of mammals that 

 became extinct long before the white man arrived in the Amer- 

 icas. These were the strange mammals of the Ice Age, or Pleis- 

 tocene. Some flourished when the climate was cold, others w^hen 



Fig. 112. — Tooth of a mastodon, a; tooth of a mammoth, b. 



