BISON. 



BISON. 



M 



600 miles wait of Hudson'* Bay ; thin in their most northern residence. 

 From thence they are met with in great droves as low as Cibole 

 (on the authority of Purchu) in lat 33, a little north of California, 

 and also in the province of Mivera in New Mexico. The specie* 



American Buon (liitou Americana*), Female*. A Bull in the distance. 





American Bison (Jliton AlHfricanu*), a Bull. 



instantly ceases south of those countries. They inhabit Canada to the 

 west of the lakes ; and in greater abundance in the rich savannah* 

 which border the river Mississippi and the great rivers which fall into 

 it from the west, in Upper Louisiana. There they are seen in 

 herds innumerable, promiscuously with multitudes of stags and deer 

 during morning and evening, retiring in the sultry heats into the 

 shade of tall reeds which border the rivers of America." 



Joseph Sabine, in the Appendix to ' Franklin's Narrative,' says that 

 they are abundant in all parts of North America, wherever the pro- 

 grew of cultivation has not interfered with their range, and that they 

 are extremely numerous on the plains of the Saskatchewan River. 

 They are also found, he observes, though leas plentifully, in the woods 

 as far north as Great Slave Lake. The most northern situation in 

 which they were observed by Sir John Franklin's party was Slave 

 point, on the north side of the lake. In the same work it is stated 

 that the natives say that the Wood Buffaloes, as they are called, are 

 larger than those of the plains, but the difference is not material 



Sir John Richardson, in his ' Fauna Boreali-Americana,' gives the 

 following compendious history of the geographical range of the 

 American Bison : " At the period when Europeans began 

 settlement* in North America, this animal was occasionally met with 

 on the Atlantic coast; but even then it appears to have been rare to 

 the eastward of the- Appalachian Mountain*, for Lawsnn has thought 

 it to be a fact worth recording, that two were killed in one season on 

 Cape Fear River. As early as the first discovery of Canada, it was 

 unknown in that country, and no mention of it whatever occur* in 



...** .la Sieur de Champlain Xaintougeois,' nor in the ' Nova 

 Francia of De MouU, who obtained the first monopoly of tin- fur- 

 trade. Theodat, whose 'History of Canada' was puhluhed in 1636, 

 merely says that he was informed that Imll- existed in the remote 

 western countries. Warden mentions that at no very distant date 

 herds of them existed in the western part* of Pennsylvania, and that 

 as late as the year 1766 they were pretty numerous in Kentucky ; but 

 they have gradually retired before the white population, and are now, 

 he says, rarely seen to the south of the Ohio, on the east side of the 

 Mississippi They still exist, however, in vast numbers in Louisiana, 

 roaming in countless herds over the prairies that are watered by the 

 Arkansas, Platte, Missouri, and upper branches of the Saskatchewan 

 and Peace rivers. Great Slave Lake, in lat 60, was at one time the 

 northern boundary of their range ; but of late years, according to the 

 testimony of the natives, they have taken possession of the flat lime- 

 stone district of Slave Point, on the north side of that lake, and have 

 wandered to the vicinity of Great Marten Lake, in lat 63 or 64. As 

 for as I have been able to ascertain, the limestone and sandstone 

 formations lying between the great Kocky Mountain ridge and thr 

 lower eastern chain of primitive rocks, are the only district* in the 

 fur countries that are frequented by the bison. In these comparative! y 

 level tracts there i* much prairie land, on which they find good grass 

 in the summer, and also many marshes overgrown with bulnwhes and 

 carices,* which supply them with winter food. Salt-springs and lakes 

 also abound on the confines of the limestone, and there are several 

 well-known salt-licks where bisons are sure to be found at all seasons 

 of the year. They do not frequent any of the districts formed of 

 primitive rocks, and the limits of their range to the eastward, within 

 the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, may be nearly correctly marked 

 on the map by a line commencing in long. 97 on the Ked Kivrr. which 

 flows into the south end of Lake Winnipeg, crossing the Saskatclu \\ -an 

 to the westward of Basquiau Hill, and running from thence by the 

 Athapescow to the east end of Great Slave Lake, Their migrations to 

 the westward were formerly limited by the Rocky Mountain range, 

 and they are still unknown in New Caledonia and on the shores of t he 

 Pacific to the north of the Columbia River, but of late years they have 

 found out a passage across the mountains, near the sources of the 

 Saskatchewan, and their numbers to the westward are said to be 

 annually increasing. In 1806, when Lewis and Clarke crossed the 

 mountains at the head of the Missouri, bison-skins were an important 

 article of traffic between the inhabitants on the east side ami tin- 

 natives to the westward. Farther to the southward, in New V 

 and California, the bison appears to be numerous on both sides of the 

 Rocky Mountain chain." 



The districts of America which these animals inhabit arc described 

 very graphically in Washington Irving's ' Tour on the I'm 



The American male 15i>on, when at it* full size, is said to weigh 

 2000 Ibs., though 12 or 14 cwt. is considered a good weight in the fur 

 countries. Sir John Richardson gives 8J feet as its length, exclusive 

 of the tail, which is 20 inches, and upwards of 6 feet as it* height at 

 the fore quarters. The head is very large, and carried low ; the eyes 

 are small, black, and piercing; the horn* are short, small, sharp. .-. i 

 far apart, for the forehead is very broad, and directed outwar. ! 

 backwards, so as to be nearly erect, with a slight curve towards the 

 outward -pointing tips. The hump is not a mere lump of fatty secre- 

 tion, like that of the zebu, but consists, exclusive of a deposit of fat 

 which varies much in quantity, of the strong muscles attached to the 

 highly-developed spinous processes of the last cervical and lin.t dorsal 

 vertebra;, forming fit machinery for the support and movement of 

 the enormous head. The chest is broad, and the legs are strong ; the 

 hind part* are narrow, and have a comparati\cly weak appca 

 The tail i* clothed with short fur-like hair, with a loiif, Miai^rlit. 

 coarse, blockish-brown tuft at the end. In winter the whole Uidy is 

 covered with long shagged hair, which in summer falls otl, 1 

 the blackish wrinkled skin exposed, except on the forehead, hump, 

 fore quarter*, under jaw, and throat, where the hair is very long and 

 shaggy, and mixed with much wool, ('atesby observes that nn the 

 forehead of a btdl the hair is a foot long, thick, and tn//led. and of a 

 dusky black colour ; that the length-of this hair hanging over their 

 ir flight, and is frequently the cause of their 

 destruction ; but that this obstruction of sight is in some measure 

 supplied by their good noses, which are no small safeguard to them. 

 A bull, says he, in summer, with his body bare and his head nmthVd 

 with long hair, makes a very formidable appearance. In sunuin-r the 



general colour of the hair is between dark -umber and livcr-l>ro\vn, and 

 lu.-l rous. The tips of the hair as it lengthens in winter are paler, 

 and before it is shed in summer much of it becomes of a pale dull 



yellowiidi-brown. In the female the head is smaller, and the hair on 

 the fore parts is not so long as it is in the male. 



Congregating in vast herds, these animals are K r the 



wide-extended savannahs of the more southern districts of the north 

 for miles in extent " Such was the multitude," say Lewi* and ( 'hirke, 

 speaking of an assemblage of Bisons as they cm ed tin- water, "that 

 although the river, including an island over which they p:t-e 1, was a 

 mile in length, the herd stretched as thick as they could swim com- 

 pletely from one side to the other." The same travellers, speaking of 



Cart T in the name of gcnui of fyprraccir, a family of plants nearly allied 

 to the Grawe*. 



