THE WOOD-BUFFALO. 287 



lie along the Peace River. Athabasca exports on an 

 average the skins of some two thousand moose yearly. 



The extraordinary powers of hearing possessed by 

 this animal have been already alluded to. It is on 

 those days when the elements are in a state of dis- 

 turbance that there is the best chance of approaching 

 unperceived. When the rain has rendered the fallen 

 debris of twigs, the dried leaves and herbage, soft and 

 pliant, and when the wind howls through the forest, 

 swaying the branches against each other, and filling 

 the air with their rustling, the moose -hunter leaves his 

 camp with the assurance of being enabled by the 

 uproar to steal unobserved and unheard on the gigantic 

 game. Notwithstanding the great numbers of moose 

 annually destroyed, they still exist in great plenty 

 throughout the vast regions of the North-West. 



Another animal formerly numerous has, however, 

 much declined in numbers of late years. This is the 

 wood-buffalo. One of the original explorers of these 

 countries found their droves darkening the meadows of 

 the Peace district; but now few survive. Unusual 

 severity of the weather is alleged as the cause of their 

 disappearance. In 1793 they ranged in large herds 

 along the shores of the Peace River ; in 1826 Sir George 

 Simpson ascended this stream, and found that the 

 buffaloes had almost become extinct. 



At the present time they exist in scattered bands on 

 the banks of the Liard River in the sixty-first degree of 

 north latitude. Preferring the dense entangled forest 



