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THE AMEEICAI^ BISONS. 



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location of the famed kingdom of Cibola by the early explorers, there do not 

 seem to be any well-authenticated accounts of the existence of these animals 

 west of the Rio Grande."^ It appears, however, that two centuries ago 

 these animals were not unknown to the Indians of the Gila and ZuSi Rivers, 



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who obtained their skins from the tribes living several hundred miles to the 

 eastward. Thus Friar Marco de Ni^a, in 1539, found ^^ ox-hides" in the pos- 

 session of the Indians living on the tributaries of the Gila, which they had 

 obtained by trading with the people of the kingdom of Cibola ;t the ancient 

 pueblo of Cibola being generally supposed to be near the site of the present 

 pueblo of ZuSi, on the river of that name.t The people of Cibola at this 

 time not only used the skins as articles of dress, but for shields and other 

 purposes. 



From the Yampah and Grand, and other tributaries of the Colorado, the 

 buffalo formerly ranged eastward to the Parks and Great Plains, but I have 



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found no record of their existence in the highlands of New Mexico, or any- 



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where to the westward or southward of Santa Fe. Coronado, during his 

 great expedition in search of the "Kingdom of Cibola" (1540 to 1543), in 

 inarching northward from the western provinces of Mexico across Arizona to 

 the plains east of Santa Fe, met with no buffaloes till he reached a place 

 called Cicuic, situated on the Pecos near the site of the present town of that 

 name, § "four leagues eastward from which place they met a new kind of 

 oxen, wild and fierce, whereof, the first day, they killed fourscore, which suf- 



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ficed the army with flesh." 



Dr. Elliott Cones, however, in his paper on the "Quadrupeds of Arizona," 

 published in the American Naturalist in 1868, jl states that "there is abundant 



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evidence that the buffalo [Bos americaniis) formerly ranged over Arizona, 

 though none exist there now." On requesting recently more detailed in- 

 formation of Dr. Cones respecting this evidence, he writes^ that he finds 



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Colorado Duriog this journey lie -vvas probably in the vicinity of Utah Lake." This route would 



take him across the range of the buffalo west of the "Rocky Mountains, since, as already stated, they at 

 that time existed on the head-waters of the Colorado, and extended as far west as Utah Lake. 



* Whipple's Itinerary, Pacific K. K. Explorations and Surveys, Yol. Til, Part I, p. 35. 



f See Nica's account of his journey as translated by Ilakluyt. — Ilalluyt^s Voyages, Vol. Ill, p. 439. 



X Davis's Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, pp. 119, 120, footnote. 



§ See R. H. Kern's Map of Coronado's route in Schoolcraft's History, Condition, and Prospects of the 



Indian Tribes of the United States, Part TV, plate iii. 

 II Vol. I, p. 540. 

 Tf Under date of *^ Washington, D. C, May 5, 1875." 



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