NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 345 



bison made seasonal migrations in search of better feeding 

 grounds. Bailey learned from an old chief of the Piute Indians 

 that in the Malheur Lake region of Oregon bison were found 

 all over the district at a time probably about the middle of the 

 last century. They went into the mountains in summer and 

 came down into the valleys in winter. During dry years, 

 Bailey writes, the waters of Malheur Lake became very low, 

 and numerous bison skeletons were laid bare, so that a series 

 of specimens was collected on which the new race was described. 

 These remains were evidently of animals that "had bogged 

 down in search of water at some dry period long ago when the 

 water had receded; or else, in attempting to cross the lake on 

 the ice in winter, or to get out to open water, they had broken 

 through and drowned." There is therefore "no question that 

 only a few generations back buffalo covered in considerable 

 numbers many of the large valleys of southeastern Oregon, 

 and that they disappeared after the introduction of horses 

 among the Indians and before many firearms were obtained. " 

 According to an old chief, Yakima Jim, said in 1916 to be 110 

 years old, the "last of the buffalo were killed during a hard 

 winter when the snow was so 1 deep that they could not get 

 grass and a good many tumbled over the high bluffs on the 

 Owyhee River" (Bailey, 1936). Grinnell (1933) comments 

 that although the bison evidently was sporadically distributed 

 in the northeastern part of California in Modoc and Lassen 

 Counties a century ago, there seems to be no good evidence 

 that it ever reached the Sierra Nevadas. It may be that 

 future comparisons will show, if material becomes available, 

 where this race intergraded with the typical Plains bison. 



WOOD BISON; WOODLAND BISON 

 BISON BISON ATHABASCAE Rhoads 



Bison bison athabascae Rhoads, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, for 1897, p. 498, 

 Jan. 18, 1898 ("Within 50 miles southwest of Fort Resolution, Mackenzie, 

 Canada"). 



FIGS.: Garretson, 1938, pi. opposite p. 12 (head and refuge map). 



The wood bison is a distinct northern race characterized by 

 darker color, more dense and silky coat, somewhat larger size, 

 and more particularly by its longer and slenderer horns and 

 horn cores, as compared with the Plains bison to the south. The 

 longer and more incurving horns give the animals a distinctly 



