28 PEAIRIE AND FOREST. 



eastern limit of the Grand Prairie, in Indiana, I have 

 frequentty found bones of the buffalo, telling too 

 plainly that this had once been his home. At the 

 present day, at least twelve hundred miles further 

 westward must be traversed before the sportsman can 

 hope for a chance to use his rifle on this game ; and 

 year after year further distances will require to be 

 journeyed to accomplish this purpose. Their southern 

 limits are Northern Texas and New Mexico, while the 

 intermediate expanse up to sixty-five degrees of north 

 latitude, according to the season, contains them in 

 more or less abundance. Of late years their range 

 north has been increased between three and four de- 

 grees, so that Indians who formerly had to come two 

 hundred or more miles, if desirous of obtaining a 

 supply of beef for winter use, have the animals now on 

 their home hunting-grounds. I am disposed to believe 

 that this is caused from their finding these northern 

 regions less disturbed for this is far north of where 

 the constant tide of emigrants crosses the plains and 

 that the poor, persecuted creatures prefer suffering 

 from the cold of these inhospitable localities to facing 

 the dangers that always are connected with a rencontre 

 with the pale-face. Although the buffalo can endure 

 a great amount of cold, and find food even after a thick 

 covering of snow lays upon the earth, yet he is not 

 provided like the musk sheep for an Arctic winter, and 

 from his greater bulk requires so much sustenance, that 

 a protracted sojourn in the northern barrens must ulti- 

 mately have the result of reducing his strength, and 

 therefore his fitness to cope with the severity of the 

 climate. Again he has other enemies as well as man. 

 The wolves seldom leave him alone. Day and night 



