i 



THE AMERICAI^ BISONS. 



171 



1^^ 



The Earl of Southcskj in his recently published narrative of his sporting 

 adventures in British North America in 1859,"^ makes but few references to 

 the biilFalo, and adds nothing of much importance to our knowledge of its 

 distribution. He speaks^, however, of their occurrence on the plains west of 

 Fort EllicCj and of meeting with large herds between the North and South 

 branches of the Saskatchewan. He also met with their recent remains near 

 Old Bow Fort, on the South Saskatchewan^ at the base of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. ^^The plains/' he says, ^^are all strewn with skulls and other vestiges 

 of the bufialo, which came up this river last year in great numbers. They 

 were once common in the mountains. At the Kootanie Plain I observed 

 some of their wallo wing-places, and even so high as a secluded little lake 

 near where the horses were tal^en up to the ice bank, I saw traces of them. 



4 



They are now rapidly disappearing everywhere." A few Avere also seen 

 near the Touchw 



Hills, west of Fort Pelly, in November, which w^as about 

 the most easterly point at which they were seen.t 



■ -. 



Captain W. P. Butler, writing in 1872, thus speaks of the region of the 

 Touchwood Hills : " This rea;ion bears the name of the Touchwood Hills. 



Around it, far into endless space, stretch immense plains of bare and scanty 

 vegetation, plains scored with the tracks of countless bufialo, which, until a 

 few vears ao-o, were wont to roam in vast herds between the Assinniboine 

 and the Saskatchewan. Upon Avliatever side the eye turns when crossing 

 these great expanses, the same wrecks of the monarch of the prairie lie 

 thickly strewn over the surface. Hundreds of thousands of skeletons dot 

 the short, scant grass ; and when fire has laid barer still the level surface 

 the bleached ribs and skulls of long-killed bison whiten far and near the dark 



bmnt prairie." t 



Captain Butler crossed the plains from Fort Ellice in a northwest direction 

 to Fort Carlton (Carlton House), and journeyed thence up the North Sas- 

 katchewan River to the base of the Rocky Mountains ; but he seems not to 

 have met with any living buffalo throughout his journey. He again refers 

 to the vast diminution the buffiilo has undergone, and mentions the whole- 

 sale slaughter formerly practised by the Cree Indians on the plains of the 

 Saskatchewan, and describes a hunt he himself participated in on the plains 

 of Nebraska. Referring to the rapidity with which the buffalo is vanishing 



* Saskateliewan and the Rocky Mountains, 1875, 



t Ibid., pp. 52, 254, 306. 



t The Great Lone Land, p. 217, 1873. 



' r 



\i 



H 



■'■} 



^ _ 



r I 



■ 



m 



' 1 



r ' 



L] 



'I' 



^a 



^ ' 



i' 



i 



