40 



THE AMERICAN EISOE"S. 



variety or perhaps a distinct species^ seems to agree in all essential particu- 

 lars with the so-called wood bison of the region farther north. The same 

 characters of larger size, darker, shorter and softer pelage, are usnally attrib- 

 uted to it, but one meets with such different, exaggerated, and contra- 

 dictory accounts of its distinctive features from different observers that it is 

 almost -impossible to believe in its existence^ except in the imaginations 

 of the hunter and adventurer. I have found that those actually conversant 

 with it, and whose opinions in general matters are most entitled to respect, 



r 



regard it as but slightly or not at all different from the bison of the plains. 

 Others who know it only from hearsay, ^nd whose notions of it are conse- 

 quently vague, generally magnify its supposed differences, till some do not 

 hesitate to declare their belief in it as a specifically distinct animal from 

 the common bison of the plains.* Dr. Cooper, speaking of the bisons 

 found formerly in the mountain valleys about the sources of the Snake 

 Kiver, says he ^^saw no difference in the skulls, indicating a different 

 species, or ^mountain buffalo' of hunters."! The bisons formerly living 

 in the parks and valleys of the central portion of the Rocky Mountain 

 chain doubtless did often grow to a larger size than those of the plains, 

 with rather larger horns, and, being less subjected to the bleaching 

 effects of the elements in their partially wooded retreats, Avould natu- 

 rally have a darker and perhaps softer pelage. The weathered bison 

 skulls I met with in 1871 in the upper part of South Park and in the 

 vicinity of the tree-limit in the Snowy Range of Colorado were certainly 

 larger, in the average, by actual measurement, than those of the Kansas 

 plains. The small bands now lingering here and there in the mountains, and 

 now currently known as the mountain buffalo, may be in part the remnants 

 of a former larger mountain form, but certainly a part of them are actually 

 recent migrants from the plains. In 1871 I was able to trace the migration 

 of a small band up the valley of the South Platte and across South Park to the 

 vicinity of the so-called Buftalo Spring, situated considerably to the south- 

 ward of Fairplay. Specimens of the "mountain bison" sent in a fresh state 

 from Colorado to the Smithsonian Institution during the present winter (De- 

 cember, 1875) certainly presented no appreciable differences from winter 

 specimens from the plains. The mountain race of the bison was appar- 



> 



f 



ently a little larger than the buffalo of the plains, and doubtless was 

 identical with the race known farther northward as the '^ wood 



* See Bulletin Essex Institute, Vol VI, p. 55, 1874. 

 t Amer. Nat., Vol. II, p. 538, 1868. 



nearly 



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