1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



57 



ANNOTATED LIST OF SPECIES 



ORDER ARTIODACTYLA: HOOFED MAMMALS 



Family BOVIDAE: Cattle, Sheep, and Goats 



BISON BISON OREGONUS BAILEY 



OREGON BISON, or BUFFALO; GOO'-CHOO or GOOT'TSOO of the Piute (C. H. M.) ; 

 GOO'-CHOO of the Pit River Indians (G. H. M.) ; TTT-PETSE-QUOTSU of the 

 Piute at Burns (V. B.) ; YUHO of the Klamath (C. H. M.) 



Bison bison, oregonus Bailey, Biol. Soc. Wash. Proc. 45: 47-48, 1932. 



Type. Skull and skeleton, collected at Malheur Lake, Oreg., by Geo. M. 

 Benson, November 1931. 



General description. Similar in characters to Bison Mson bison of south- 

 western Texas, but slightly larger, with relatively longer and straighter 

 and less abruptly tapering horn cores, indicating wider and straighter horns 

 of a somewhat larger animal. 

 The rostrum or arch formed 

 by the upper premaxillary 

 bones is slightly longer and 

 relatively narrower than in 

 southern specimens ; interpter- 

 ygoid fossa wider and larg- 

 er ; auditory inflations smaller 

 than in typical Texas skulls; 

 molars larger. No external 

 characters are or can ever be 

 known as the form is long 

 extinct. The cranial charac- 

 ters distinguishing it incline 

 somewhat toward those of the 

 much larger athabascae but 

 are no nearer to it on the one 

 hand than to southern Texas 

 specimens on the other. 



Distribution and habi- 

 tat. Buffalo once inhab- 

 ited eastern Oregon in 

 considerable abundance 

 (fig. 7). On November 1, 

 1826, Ogden (1910, p. 

 207) in charge of a large 

 party of trappers pene- 

 trated the interior of Oregon to Harney Lake, which he graphically 

 describes, and he notes in his journal, " Buffalo have been here and 

 heads are to be seen." 



In 1873, O. C. Marsh found the bones of a buffalo, much decom- 

 posed but perfectly characteristic, on Willow Creek in the south- 

 eastern foothills of the Blue Mountains, which would mean some- 

 where between the present towns of Vale and Ironside ( J. A. Allen, 

 1876a, p. 119). 



In 1915 W. F. Schnabel gave to the Biological Survey an old horn 

 of a buffalo picked up near Cow Creek Lake, Malheur County, Oreg., 

 the preceding summer, and he told E. A. Preble of a skeleton in a 

 cave several miles southwest of Jordan Crater. In a later letter 

 dated March 21, 1916, Schnabel wrote : 



I went to the cave for the buffalo skeleton and it was gone. I have found 

 two more heads on the Owyhee River and they are there to this day. The 



FIGDKB 7. Range of buffalo, Bison bison oregonus, in 

 Oregon and adjoining States, with border line of 

 original range. Spots indicate actual records. 



