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8 



THE AMERICAK" BISONS. 



accept these terms as implying the presence of buiFaloes in the region under 

 consideration, we must allow, on similar evidence, that wild goats were found 

 in the seventeenth century along the whole length of the St. LaAvrence, 

 throughout the Mississippi Valley and in Florida ; * that zviid s'wine were found 

 in Canada at the mouth of the Saguenay River, and in the Middle States ; f 



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also wild horses in Newfoundland prior to the year 1600 ; monJceys and 

 apes in Virginia ;t and that wild lemons formerly grew in Southern Michi- 



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gan.§ Goat Island, at the Palls of Niagara, probably derives its name from 

 the custom of calling the deer that frequented it wild goats. The name of 

 Buffalo Eiver [Riviere aiix Boevfs) in New York, || and the name of the city 

 on Lake Erie now called Buffalo, are not necessarily, though probably, tra- 

 ditional evidences ^ of the occurrence of the buffalo at those localities, since 

 it is not verv improbable, as will be shown later, that the buffalo formerly 

 ranged along the southern shore of Lake Erie to its eastern end. 



As previously stated, there is good reason also for assuming that the buffalo 

 was not found in New England, nor along the coast of the Middle States, 

 daring a long period antedating the exploration of the continent hy Europeans^ or 

 during the period of the formation of the Indian shell mounds of the North 



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Atlantic coast, which contain no traces of the remains of the buffalo, as they 

 probably would do if it had existed here at the time of their formation, since 

 they do contain the bones of all the larger mammals found here by the earli- 

 est European travellers. There still remains to be examined, however, one 

 supposed evidence of its existence in New England in prehistoric times. 



Shortly before the second visit of Sir Charles Lyell to the United States, 

 some teeth of a species of the ox tribe were found in a clay-bank at Gardiner^ 





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* See the various accounts of the voyages of De Soto^ La Salle, Hennepin, Marquette, and others, where 

 the term wild goat is probably used for deer, but sometimes as though it referred to a distinct animal, both 

 wild goats, stags, and deer being mentioned in the same sentence. 



f That bears were mistaken for swine, in the following account, is of course evident : '' Wee might see 



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in some places where Deere and Hares had beene, and by the rooting of the Ground, we supposed wilde 

 IIo"-s had rano-ed there, but we could discerne no Beast, because our Noise still chased them away from 



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George Weymouth's Voyage, 1605, in Purchas, Pilgrims, Vol. IV, p. 1665. 



X See Strachey's Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 26 ; Hakluyt Society, Volume for 1849. 



§ "There also ^-row in the Strait [Detroit River] Lemon-Trees in the natural Soil, the Fruit of 

 which have the Shape and Colour of those of Portugal, but they are smaller, and of a flat Taste, They 

 are excellent in conserve." — Charlevoix, Letters, p. 178. 



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,11 Supposed to be the present Oak Orchard Creek, Orleans Co., N. Y. See Doc. Coll. Hist. N. Y., Vol. 



IX, p. 886. 



If Schoolcraft, Hist. Cond. and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Part IV, p. 92. 





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