94 



Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. XI 



date. He says: ''When the last buffalo, Bos Americanus, crossed the 

 Mississippi is not precisely known. Governor Dodge told me that 

 buffalo were killed on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix river the 

 next year after the close of the Black Hawk war, which would be in 

 1833" (/. c, p. 256). Sibley states in Schoolcraft's Indians that two 

 Buffalo were killed in 1832 by Sioux Indians on the Trempeleau River 

 in upper Wisconsin. 



A letter received from Mr. E. J. Chansler of Bicknell, Knox County,* 

 Indiana, contains some interesting notes concerning the occurrence of 

 Buffalo in that locality in early days. He writes, "Mr. John G. Bailey 

 (ex County recorder) told me that his grandfather came to Vincennes 

 in 1800 and that his father was six years old when he came, and that his 

 father could have killed Buffalo just east of town, when he got old 

 enough to hunt, but was afraid to shoot them. This would perhaps 

 place the last date for Buffalo in Knox County or Indiana at about 

 1810 or 1812. 



''Mr. Brad Thompson told me his father claims to have seen Buffalo 

 in 1808 in Knox County. 



"Mr. Felix Boushie told me that his wife's grandfather, Tony Rush- 

 ville, killed a Buffalo cow and calf 5 miles south of Vincennes on the 

 Wabash in 1800. 



''' or ,n;N'^'^ Xi ;. 



^-^N ^ 



Map illustrating probable former range of the American Bison or Buffalo (Bison bison) in the 

 United States. In western Canada its range extended northward at least as far as Great Slave Lake. 



Compiled from maps given by Dr. J. A. Allen, monograph of the American Bison; Dr. W. T. 

 Homaday, Extermination of the American Bison; Mr. E. T. Seton, Life Histories of Northern Animals, 

 together with records by various early writers. >, 



* Knox County, Indiana, is separated from Lawrence Co., Illinois, by the Wabash 

 River. 



