344 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



(vol. 91, pp. 12-13, Jan. 5, 1940), the bison are to be killed and 

 the meat and hides sold. 



OREGON BISON 



BISON BISON OREGONTJS Bailey 



Bison bison oregonus Bailey, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 45, p. 48, Apr. 2, 1932 

 ("Dry bed of Malheur Lake, Oregon"). 



In the extreme western extension of its range, the local bison 

 was slightly different from the typical Plains bison of south- 

 western Texas, being "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; interpterygoid fossa wider and larger; auditory in- 

 flations smaller than in typical Texas skulls; molars larger." 

 The external characters are unknown. 



This race of the bison is now extinct, but a century or more 

 ago it was found over southern Idaho and extreme northern 

 Nevada to southeastern Oregon and northeastern California, 

 areas that it reached from the more eastern plains through 

 broad flat valleys such as those of the Quinn River and Alvord 

 Valley. Vernon Bailey (1936) has gathered together what is 

 known of its history. From the lips of older Indians of the 

 region, he heard that these animals formerly abounded about 

 the Cow Creek Lakes country in the early part of the last 

 century, and Townsend in 1834 found them across southern 

 Idaho to the Malad River. They seem to have vanished from 

 Oregon before the arrival of the white man, and disappeared 

 from Idaho soon after the coming of the early explorers. This 

 disappearance Bailey attributes largely to the fact that by the 

 beginning of the last century the Indians of this region were 

 then well supplied with horses and thus were able to make 

 more serious inroads into the ranks of the bison, finally ex- 

 terminating them. Merriam (1926) was able to obtain definite 

 accounts of its former presence in northeastern California 

 where old Indians of several tribes said that their fathers had 

 killed these animals, as in Pine Creek Valley west of Eagle 

 Lake. The Indians believed that they came in small bands 

 from still farther north, indicating that here as elsewhere the 



