48 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



ship. It adjoins the township of the same name in Armstrong Co., and a 

 bend of Buffalo Creek intersects it. 



Centre Co. Buffalo Run flows north along the Bald Eagle range in the 

 central part of this county. Rhoads. 



Clcarfield Co. The region of Clearfield Creek was so named (and from it 

 the county) because " the buffaloes formerly cleared large tracts of under- 

 growth so as to give the appearance of cleared fields." See Rev. John Ett- 

 wein's " Notes of Travel from the north branch of the Susquehanna to 

 Beaver, Pa." in 1772, in the Pa. Mag. Hist, for 1901, published by the His- 

 torical Society of Pa. Jordan. 



Crawford and Erie Cos. In a History of this Co. (1885, p. 260), a 

 quotation is given from a French memoir written in 1714 stating, "Buffalos 

 are found on the south shores of Lake Erie, but not on the north shore." 

 Kirkpatrick. " Buffalos ranged south from Buffalo, N. York through Erie, 

 Crawford, Venango and Mercer Cos. French Creek, draining this region in 

 Pa., was called by the French before the revolution ' La Bouffe River ' be- . 

 cause of the buffaloes found there." Irwin. A township in southern Erie 

 Co. where French Creek (Le Boeuf Creek) in part has its rise is still named 

 Le Boeuf; also a village in the same township and the most northern affluent 

 of the same creek in Green Twp. Rhoads. 



"The Onondargo [Lake, N. York] which has a portage communication 

 with [the sources of the Allegheny] River, is a fine lake of brackish water, 

 surrounded by springs, from two to five hundred gallons of the water of which 

 make a bushel of salt. * * All the [domestic] animals of those parts have 

 a great fondness for salt. The native animals of the country, too, as the 

 buffalo, elk, deer, etc., are well known to pay periodical visits to the saline 

 springs and lakes, bathing and washing in them, and bathing in the water till 

 they are hardly able to remove from their vicinity. The best roads to the 

 Onondargo from all parts are the buffalo tracks, so called from having been 

 observed to be made by the buffaloes in their annual visitations to the lake 

 from their pasture grounds ; and though this is a distance of above two hun- 

 dred miles, the best surveyors could not have chosen a more direct course or 

 firmer or better ground. I have often traveled these tracks with safety and 

 admiration. * * An old man, one of the first settlers in this country 

 [Northeastern Pa., presumably Erie Co.], built his log-house on the immedi- 

 ate borders of a salt spring. He informed me that for the first several seasons 

 the buffaloes paid him their visits with the utmost regularity ; they traveled in 

 single files always following each other at equal distances, forming droves on 

 their arrival, of about three hundred each. The first and second years, so 

 unacquainted were these poor brutes with this man's house or with his nature, 

 that in a few hours they rubbed the house completely down, taking delight in 

 turning the logs of wood off with their horns, while he had some difficulty to 



