THE AMERICAN BISONS. 141 



their range at the present time (January, 1876), he says : " So viel mir bis 

 jetzt bekannt, so geht der Bison ostlich im Texas nicht mehr iiber die Linie 

 hinaus welche von der Mundung der Little Wichita in den Red River in ge- 

 rader Richtung fast siidlich bis zur Mundung des Pecan Bayou in den River 

 Colorado sich austreckt. Wie sich diese Linie vom Colorado River bis zum 

 Rio Grande gestaltet ist schwer zu sagen, doch glaube ich class von der Mun- 

 dung des Pecan Bayou sie mehr eine stark sudwestliche Richtung bis zum 

 30° nordlich Breite annehmen wird." 



Respecting their present southern limit in Texas, a letter written by Mr. 

 J. Stevens in answer to my inquiries on this point, and kindly transmitted 

 to me by Mr. C. E. Aiken, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, states, on the au- 

 thority of Mr. W. H. Case, who has lived for the last two or three years at 

 Fort Concho, that buffaloes have of late been quite numerous there in winter, 

 and that they were especially so last winter. He says that " after severe 

 storms they come in from the north in large numbers," at which times he 

 has seen larger herds there than anywhere else, not excepting Kansas and 

 the Indian Territory. East of Fort Concho he says they do not go south of 

 the latitude of that post, but that to the westward they go twenty to fifty 

 miles further to the southward, but only occasionally. Mr. Stevens adds that 

 none are found very far to the westward of Fort Concho, and that none have 

 been found for a long time in any part of New Mexico, and that probably 

 none ever will be found there again. From the best information I have 

 been able to obtain, their present western limit seems to be the eastern 

 border of the Staked Plains. 



Their Extermination in Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. — Passing now 

 to the region north of Texas, the history of the extermination of the buffalo 

 throughout the tier of States adjoining the Mississippi River — namely, 

 Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota — will be first given, and afterward 

 an account of its extermination over the region between the Platte River 

 and the northern boundary of Texas. 



According to Nuttall, the bison was still to be met with in Arkansas as late 

 as 1819, a few then existing near the Arkansas River, in the present county 

 of Conway, not far from the centre of the State.* In a journey from Fort 

 Smith southwestward to the Red River, his party also met with large herds 

 on Riameche Creek, in the present Indian Territory, near the southwestern 

 border of Arkansas.! Major Long found their skulls and other remains at 



* Travels into the Arkansas Country, p. 118. 

 f Ibid., pp. 149, 150. 



