104 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



dred miles above the Falls of St. Anthony ; * and Schoolcraft reports their 

 existence in the same vicinity as late as 1820. On the map accompanying 

 Schoolcraft's narrative of his expedition to the sources of the Mississippi 

 River, he has marked the plains above the Falls of St. Anthony as the '•' Buf- 

 falo Plains " ; and in the text he says : '•' Here also [mouth of De Corbeau 

 River] the Buffalo Plains commence, and continue down on both sides of 

 the river to the Falls of St. Anthony." t The buffaloes may never have 

 existed in Northeastern Wisconsin, though they probably ranged over the 

 prairies of the western and southern portions of the State. They were not 

 met with, however, even there by the first European explorers of that 

 region. 



Father Marquette does not appear to have met with them in crossing from 

 Green Bay to the Wisconsin River, in 1673, nor did he see them in his sub- 

 sequent descent of that river.J La Hontan, in 1687, also found none on 

 either the Fox or Wisconsin Rivers, first meeting with them on the Missis- 

 sippi not far above the mouth of the Wisconsin.§ Marquette first found 

 them on the Mississippi River, in latitude "41° 28'," in July, 1673. "Having 

 descended the River," he says, "as far as 4T 28', we find that turkeys have 

 taken the place of game, and the Pisikious that of other beasts. We call 

 the Pisikious wild buffaloes, because they very much resemble our domestic 

 oxen." || Following this is a description of the "pisikious," or buffaloes, and 

 the uses made of them by the Indians; and he adds. •• they graze upon the 

 banks of rivers, and I have seen four hundred in a herd together."^]" Hen- 

 nepin, Marest, Gravier, Charlevoix, and other Jesuit missionaries appear not 

 to have met witli it on the St. Joseph's River, nor anywhere in Southern 



* Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, etc . Pt I. App. p. 53. 



t Narrative Journal of Travel to the Sources of the Mississippi, etc., p. 275. 



I In :m English translation of Marquette's narrative "f hi* discoveries (French's Ili-t. foil, of Lou- 

 isiana, Part [I, p. 284), we find the following passage: in speaking of the Wisconsin (" Mesconsin ") be 

 i in- country through which it Sows i* beautiful ; the groves are so dispersed in the prairies thai it 

 makes a noble prospect"; and he adds: ' rVi san neither game nor fish, bul roebuck and buflaluet in 

 great numbers." Mr. .1. < '•. Shea says : " The French word here i* vacke*, which bas generally been trans; 

 lated bison or buffalo." In tin In tance, Mr. Shes says, ii i- clearly :i mistake, as Marquette and his party 

 li 1 1 not yel reached the buffalo grounds, and tin' missionary afterwards describes the animal when he 

 meeti it. Discoveries ami '/ ippi Valley, p. 10. 



§ La II \ iges, Eng> cd., Vol I. pp. Ill, US. 



\ Henderson baa remarked, "Father Marquette was doubtless the firsl white man who pent 

 to the habitat of the buffalo by way "f the Great Lakes, although, according to Marquette, their -kin- bad 

 been previously exported to Europe." .1 .■». Naturalist, Vol \ I. p 



c French's HUtorical Collection of Louisiana Pari II. p 



