American Big-Game Hunting 
Wyoming, and most of New Mexico they were 
abundant, and probably common over a large 
part of Utah, and perhaps in northern Nevada. 
So far as now known, their western limit was 
the Blue Mountains of Oregon and the eastern 
foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. 
Thus it will be seen that the buffalo once 
ranged over a large part of the American 
continent,— Dr. Allen says one third of it,— 
but it must not be imagined that they were 
always present at the same time in every part 
of their range. They were a wandering race, 
sometimes leaving a district and being long 
absent, and again returning and occupying it 
for a considerable period. What laws or what 
impulses governed these movements we can- 
not know. Their wandering habits were well 
understood by the Indians of the Western 
plains, who depended upon the buffalo for 
food. It was their custom to follow the herds 
about, and when, as sometimes occurred, these 
moved away and could not be found, the In- 
dians were reduced to great straits for food, 
and sometimes even starved to death. 
Under natural conditions the buffalo was an 
animal of rather sluggish habits, mild, inoffen- 
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