THE AMERICAN" BISONS. 137 



northward, however, they still occupied nearly all the Great Plains, from the 

 Rocky Mountains almost to the Mississippi River. 



I have as yet met with but few data relating to the extermination of the 

 buffalo, either south of the Rio Grande or in Texas, prior to 1840, but since 

 that period the record is reasonably full. Beginning with the year 1841, 

 we find that at this time Kendall, in travelling north from Austin, Texas, 

 first met with buffaloes seventy-five miles north of Austin, on Little River, a 

 southern tributary of the Brazos, where he found them in immense herds. 

 In speaking of them he says : " There are perhaps larger herds of buffalo at 

 present in Northern Texas than anywhere else on the western prairies, their 

 most formidable enemies, the Indians, not ranging so low down in large 

 parties on account of the whites; but I was told that every year their num- 

 bers were gradually decreasing, and their range, owing to the approach of 

 white settlers from the east and south, becoming more and more circum- 

 scribed." Kendall also found them numerous on the Brazos, and states that 

 they occasionally took shelter in the Cross Timbers, and that he last met 

 with them, in going westward, on the upper part of the Big Washita, one of 

 the sources of the Red River, near the one hundredth degree of longitude.* 



Kennedy, writing in the same year, says, "The bison is still to be met with 

 in the mountainous districts between the Guadeloupe and the Rio Grande."! 

 According to Gregg, however, they had already disappeared cast of the Cross 

 Timbers as early as 1840.$ 



In 1849, in an expedition from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Santa Fe, Lieu- 

 tenant J. H. Simpson first saw signs of buffaloes near the 97th meridian, a 

 few miles south of the Canadian, but adds that he saw not more than two 

 buffaloes on the whole journey. In speaking of the game, he says : " In 

 regard to the buffalo, there can be no question that they have been in the 

 habit of infesting the route in places during certain seasons of the year. 

 Indeed, Gregg mentions them as swarming on the plains on his return trip 

 from Santa Fe, in the spring of 1840. During our journey, however, I did 

 not see more than two, from the beginning to the end of the trip, and there- 

 fore I am not at liberty to hold them up as any certain source upon which 

 to rely for subsistence." § 



* Kendall (G. W".), Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, Vol. I, pp. 78, 79. 



t Kennedy (Win.), Texas : The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic, Vol. I, p. 122. 



+ Commerce of the Prairies, Vol. II, p. 122. 



§ Congress. Rep., 31st Congr., 1st Session, Senate Ex. Doc, No. 12, pp. G, 20. 



