Woodland Bison 309 



it is rather above the average size of the hitter, with the base ot the 

 horn -cores relatively thicker. The head -skin has the whole pelage 

 darker, softer, and more silky than the bison ot the plains. . . . The 

 present specimen confirms, as fiir as it goes, the characters recently assigned 

 to the wood-bison by Mr. S. N. Rhoads, and quite warrants its recognition 

 under the name of Bioii hison athahasct?. . . . Formerly it doubtless 

 completely intergraded with the southern form. Now that it is on the 

 point of extinction, the following summary ol its recent decadence may 

 not be without interest : — 



" As is well known, the American bison formerly ranged continuously 

 from the northern boundary of the United States northward over the 

 Saskatchewan plains to the region about Great Slave Lake, in latitude 

 60° N., and even, according to Richardson, to the vicinity ot- Great Marten 

 Lake, in latitude 63" or 64'. Their range in the north, as well as in the 

 south, gradually became more and more restricted, the last remnants 

 consisting of only a few widely separated bands. 



" There is abundant evidence to show that the wood-bison formerly 

 ranged from the Liard River, in latitude 60", eastward to the eastern end 

 of the Great Slave Lake, and from the district just north-west ol: Great 

 Slave Lake southward, including the half open -country on both sides of 

 Great Slave River, to the western end of Lake Athabasca, and westward 

 to the east base of the Rocky Mountains." 



The author then makes the following among other extracts trom a 

 letter written to him by Mr. Frank Russell, who hunted them in 

 1894:— 



"The herd at present consists of a few hundred only. They are to 

 wary that but one effective shot can be fired, when they betake themselves 

 to instant flight, and, as with the moose, pursuit is altogether tutile. They 

 cannot be hunted iii summer, as the country which they inhabit is an 

 impenetrable, mosquito-infested, wooded swamp at that season. They 



