120 The Bison 



found on the Atlantic slope, this was only in the 

 southeastern portion of its range; while in Can- 

 ada, New England, and Florida, it was probably 

 unknown. 



The error into which early writers were led on 

 this subject undoubtedly arose from the terms 

 used by the earlier explorers, who spoke constantly 

 of vaches, or vaches sauvages, and less frequently 

 of buffu or buffle. But the term wild cows, used 

 by the early French Jesuits and English explorers, 

 referred to the elk (Cervus canadensis), while the 

 words buffu or buffle were used to designate moose 

 (Alces). In some of the narratives of the journeys 

 of the Jesuit travellers, there appear on almost 

 every page references to the herds of vaches 

 sauvages, and many of these writers, at one time 

 or another, describe these wild cows in such 

 unmistakable language as to show beyond ques- 

 tion that they were the elk or wapiti. 



Dr. Allen assigns the Alleghany Mountains as 

 the general eastern boundary of the range of the 

 buffalo, although explaining that it frequently 

 passed beyond that range, and showing conclu- 

 sively that it occurred in the western portions 

 of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and 

 South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Hornaday 



