THE CATALO 



By Martin S. Garketson 



€XPEEIMENTS in breeding and producing the Catalo (a cross 

 between the American Buffalo and domestic cow) have been 



indulged in by nunierons individuals with more or less 

 success for a great number of years. The earliest account Ave have 

 is that of Peter Kalm,* who states that in 1750 the calves of the 

 wild cows and oxen which are to be met with in Carolina and other 

 provinces south of Pennsylvania, had been obtained by several people 

 of distinction, who brought them up among tbe tame cattle. When 

 grown u|), he adds, they were perfectly tame, but at the same time, 

 very unruly. They likewise copulated wth tame cattle. 



Gallatint also says that they were not only domesticated, in 

 Virginia, but were bred to domestic cattle, and that the mixed breed 

 was fertile. x4s some doubts were raised on that point, he further 

 states, writing some years later, "I must say that the mixed breed was 

 quite common in 1784 in some of the northern counties of Virginia, 

 and that the cows, the issue of that mixture, propagated like all 

 others. No attempt that I know of was ever made to tame a buffalo 

 of full growth, but calves were occasionally caught by the dogs and 

 brought alive to the settlements. A bull thus raised, was for a 

 number of years owned in my immediate vicinity by a farmer living 

 on the Monongahela adjoining Mason and Dixon's line. He was 

 permitted to roam at large, and was more dangerous to man than 

 any bull of the common species, but to these bulls, he was most 

 formidable, and would not suffer any to approach within two or three 

 miles of his range. Most of the cows I knew were descended from 

 him. From a want of fresh supply of the wild animal, they have 

 merged into the common kind. They were no favorites as they yielded 

 less milk. The su^perior size and strength of the buffalo might have 

 improved the breed of oxen for draft, but this was not attended to, 

 horses being almost exclusively employed in that quarter for agricul- 

 tural pursuits." 



There is but little in these two accounts that would tend to show 

 with what buffalo these crosses were made, but it is not at all 

 unlikely that thev were the buffalo that ranged over the Eastern 

 States from Georgia to Northern New York, and were quite numerous 

 in Pennsvlvania, ]\Iarylaiid. and Virginia at the period mentioned in 

 these accounts. These buffalo were said to be of a different type, and 

 much larger than the western plains bison. A good description of this 

 animal is given in that interesting little book, "A Pennsylvania Bison 

 Hunt,"t and is as follows : 



"The Pennsylvania bison was a tremendous animal. He exceeded 

 in size the buffalo met Avith west of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. 



Ppter Kalm's Travels in North America. Vol. I. page 162. 

 Albert Gallatin. A Synopsis of Indian Tribes of America Antiquarian Soc, 

 Vol. II. page 139. 



A Pennsylvania Bison Hunt, pages 16-17, by Henry W. Shoemaker. Published 

 by the Middleburg Press, 1915 



30 



