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THE AMEEICA¥ BISOXS. 



157 



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region^ speaks of the extensive plains between the meridian of Fort Union and 

 the Rocky Mountains as being the ^'pasture-grounds of unfailing millions of 

 the uncouth and ponderous bufFalo."* Lieutenant Saxon, in his report of a 

 journey down the Missouri^ from Fort Benton to Fort Unions made in 1853^ 



says that during the last few days of their journey, as they approached Fort 



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Union, they saw innumerable herds of buflfalo-cowSj in many places extending 

 in every direction as far as the eye could reach, f Lieutenant Groger, the 

 same year (October, 1853), also found large bands on the Missouri from the 

 Musselshell to the Milk River^t and small bands were also seen by Tinkham 

 west of the Great Falls, on the Sun River^§ where herds were also observed 

 in January, 1854, by Lieutenant Groger. ]| In December, 1853, they oc- 

 curred in ^reat numbers on Big Hole Prairie, on the head of the Jefferson 



Fork.^ They were also reported as occurring on the Milk River, near Camp 

 Atchison, and also on other of the neighboring northern tributaries of the 

 Missouri. 



Dr. Cooper states that in 1860 ^Hhe buffalo herd of the Upper Missouri 

 was spread from the Rocky Mountains, near latitude 4:9% southeast," and says 

 that he "found them along the Missouri, frOhi its upper Great Bend, west to 

 about fifty miles above Milk River, but nowhere in great numbers. Remains 

 of their skeletons, left about five years since, were abundant w^est of Fort 

 Benton, and," he adds, "I saw one or more old skulls daily in the valley of 

 the Little Blackfoot and Hell Gate Rivers [west of the mountains], quite 

 down to the junction with the Bitter Root." **' 



Lieutenant M. E. Hogan, 22d United States Infantry, who for some years 

 previous had been in the United States mihtary service in the Department 

 of Dakota, informed me in 1873 that the buffaloes had recently crossed the 

 Marias and Teton Rivers, in Northwestern Montana, from the northward, 

 and were abundant throughout the region about Fort Shaw, and that there 

 were '^millions of buffaloes" on Milk River. 



Respecting the present range of the buffalo between the Missouri River 

 and the 49th parallel, and the evidences of their recent occupation of this 



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Pacific R. R. Rep. of ExpL and Surveys, Vol. I, Governor Stevens's Rep., p. 167, 



t Ibid., p. 264. 



I Ibid., p. 494, 

 Ibid., p. 369. - 



II Ibid., p. 500. 

 IT Ibid., p. 167. 



** American Naturalist, Vol. I, p. 538, 





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