THE AMERICAN BISONS. 129 



northeastern provinces of Mexico, including certainly portions of the present 

 States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Cohahuila, Chihuahua, and Durango. It 

 thus extended southward to at least the 25th parallel. It seems not, how- 

 ever, to have been abundant over much of this region, and to have been 

 mainly extirpated prior to the beginning of the present century. As late as 

 1806, however, Pike enumerated the buffalo among the animals of " Cog- 

 quilla " * (a province then extending on both sides of the Eio Grande, and 

 embracing a portion of what is now Southwestern Texas), but whether found 

 north or south of the Rio Grande is not stated. The buffalo is not enumer- 

 ated by Pike in his lists of the animals of any of the other Mexican Prov- 

 inces situated south of the Rio Grande.f 



De Laett mentions the buffalo (under the name "Armenta"), on the 

 authority of Gomara, as an inhabitant of Quivira, which he describes as a 

 country consisting of plains destitute of trees, and well known as situated 

 far to the northward of the present northern boundary of Mexico. It is to 

 be noticed also that all the references to the buffalo by the older writers 

 on the natural history of Mexico, including Hernandez, Fernandez, and 

 Nieremburg, and even Clavigero, refer to the region of Quivira. 



Dr. Berlandier, who was for a long time a resident of the northeastern 

 provinces of Mexico, and who at his death left in MSS. a large work§ on 

 the Mammals of Mexico, speaks of the buffalo as formerly ranging far to the 

 southward of the Rio Grande. I am unable to say, however, what are his 

 authorities. In his chapter on this animal, he thus refers to its former range 

 in Mexico : — 



"Au Mexique, lorsque les espagnols, toujours avides de richesses, pous- 

 saient leurs excursions dans le nord et nord ouest, ils ne tarderent pas a ren- 

 contrer des bisons. En 1602, les moines Franciscains qui decouvrirent le Nou- 

 veau Leon, rencontrerent dans les environs de Monterey de nombreux trou- 

 peaux cle ces quadrupedes. Ils etaient aussi assez repandus dans la Nouvelle 



* " Animal*. — Deer, wild horses, a few buffalo, and wild hogs." — Pike's (Z. M.) Western Expeditions, 

 App. to Part III, p. 28, 1810. 



f Catlin in his " North American Indians," Vol. I, gives a map illustrative of the distribution of the 

 Indian tribes in 1833. On this map an attempt is made to also show the range of the buffalo. Although 

 this is done very imperfectly, it may be worthy of mention in this connection that he here represents the 

 buffa'o as ranging over the greater part of the above-named provinces of Northeastern Mexico. 



t Ameriea, p. 303. 



§ Now in the Smithsonian Institution. For access to ibis important M.S. I am indebted to the kindness 

 of Professor S. F. Baird, Assist. Sec'y of the Smithsonian Institution. 



