THE AMERICAN BISONS. 81 



term for the moose. The name "orignac" or " orignal " of the early 

 French explorers appears to have been applied indifferently to both the 

 moose (Alces malchis) and the elk ( Cervus canadensis), but never to the buf- 

 falo. Champlain, in speaking of the game he found about Lake Cham- 

 plain, makes no reference to the buffalo, neither do any of the subsequent 

 writers of the seventeenth century. In regard to the " Ellans," we find in 

 Lescarbot's account the following : " The winter being come, the Savages 

 of the Countrey did assemble themselves from farre to Port Roy all, for to 

 trucke with the Frenchmen for such things as they had, some bringing 

 Beavers skins and Otters .... and also Ellans or Stagges, whereof good 

 bnffe be made." * We thus see that the term buffe was also applied to the 

 products of the elk and moose. Charlevoix's description of the Orignal, 

 however, is strictly applicable to the moose, and to no other animal. 

 Charlevoix says : " AVhat they here [in Canada] call the Orignal, is 

 what in Germany, Poland, and Muscovy they call the Elk, or Great Beast. 

 .... Its Horns are not less long than those of a Hart, and much wider. 

 They are flat and forked like those of a Deer, and are renewed every 

 Year." t 



Hennepin ascended the St. Lawrence and crossed the lakes to the 

 prairies of Indiana and Illinois in 1679 - 80, but Hennepin in his narra- 

 tive of his travels does not speak. of meeting with the buffalo until he had 

 reached the Illinois River in December, 1679.$ In his account of the pro- 

 ductions of Canada, he says, "There are to be had Skins of Elks, or Oriynaux, 

 as they are called in Canada, of the white Wolf or Lynx, of black Foxes, 

 .... of common Foxes, Otters, Martens, wild Cats, wild Goats, Harts, 

 Porcupines," etc. § In the account he has given of his travels he describes 

 the buffalo with such particularity || as to leave no doubt that if he had met 

 with or known of the occurrence of the buffalo in what is now known 

 as Canada, he would not have failed to enumerate it among the products 

 of that country. 



In 1763 Marquette passed up the St. Lawrence, and through the Great 

 Lakes to the Mississippi Valley, by way of Lake Michigan and the Fox and 



* Purchas, Pilgrims, Vol. IV, p. 1613. 



f Letters to the Dutchess of Lesdiguieres, Goadby's English Ed., London, 1763, p. 64. 



% New Discovery of a great Country in America, English Ed., 1698, p. 90. 



§ Voyage into North America, English Ed., 1679, pp. 136, 137. 



|| New Discovery, etc., p. 91. 



