Bibliographical Notice. 379 



there are certain parts of the country over which they formerly 

 roamed in immense herds, but are never or rarely seen at the present 

 time. The area over which the Buffalo graze is annually contracting 

 its geographical limits. As near as I could ascertain, about 250,000 

 individuals are destroyed every year, about 100,000 being killed for 

 robes. At the present time, the number of the males to the females 

 seems to be in the ratio of 1 to 1 ; and this fact is readily accounted 

 for from the fact that the males are seldom killed when the cows can 

 be obtained. Skins of females only are used for robes, and [the 

 females] are preferred for food. Besides the robes which are traded 

 to the whites by the Indians, each man, woman, and child requires 

 from one to three robes a year for clothing. A large quantity are 

 employed in the manufacture of lodges, and an immense number of 

 the animals, which would be difficult to estimate, are annually de- 

 stroyed by wolves and by accidents. The Buffaloes vary in colour, 

 white, cream, grey, sometimes spotted with white, with white feet 

 and legs, &c. These varieties are called by the Indians " Medicine 

 Buffaloes," and are regarded of the greatest value, often bringing 

 several hundred dollars. About one in fifty thousand is an albino, 

 while one robe in one hundred thousand is called by the traders a 

 " silk robe," and is usually valued at 100 to 200 dollars. Range : 

 formerly found throughout nearly the whole of North America, east 

 of the Rocky Mountains ; now confined to the plains west of the 

 Missouri and along the slopes of the Rocky Mountains" (pp. 150, 

 151). 



Catalogues of Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes follow, also of River and 

 Land Shells, with interesting remarks by Lea and Binney. Chap- 

 ter xviii., lastly, is occupied by a catalogue of Plants and a list of the 

 Carices of Nebraska. Messrs. Baird, Cope, Gill, Lea, Binney, 

 Engelmann, and Dewey have helped the author with the catalogues. 

 Mr. Meek has assisted him throughout. 



There can be no doubt that Dr. Hayden's observations on the 

 geological structure of the great north-west regions traversed by him 

 on several occasions indicate correctly the distribution of the Tertiary, 

 Cretaceous, Jurassic, Infrajurassic, Carboniferous, Silurian, Meta- 

 morphic, and Igneous rocks in that wide area, replacing hypothesis 

 with facts, and supplying us with clear notions of the exact characters 

 of the several formations there represented, and means of compar- 

 ing them with their equivalents in other parts of North America, 

 and with their representatives in Europe and elsewhere. The geo- 

 logy of the region immediately to the north of the districts examined 

 by Dr. Hayden is described by Hind and Hector. The fossils col- 

 lected by Mr. Hind in the " Canadian Expedition" were determined 

 by Messrs. Meek and Hayden ; and Dr. Hector (Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc. vol. xvii. p. 388 &c.) keeps well in view the important labours 

 of these gentlemen, especially in the Tertiary and Cretaceous geology 

 of the conterminous region. 



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