114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



THE WOOD BUFFALO. 



(Bison amerieanus, var ?) 



The present is very closely related to the Pi'airie Bnftalo. The 

 majority of writers either hold them to be identical, or ignore this 

 variety altogether ; but this is owing chiefly to the lack of informa- 

 tion regarding the animal, for, curiously enough, this the largest 

 land mammal in America, is among those of which the very least is 

 known. 



The information which is here pi'esented, is gathered from Captain 

 Butler's narrative, and from the lips of two northern hunters, Elzear 

 Mignault, who spent twelve years (lc'63-'75) on the Peace River, in 

 the service of the Hudson's Bay Co., and Mr. K. N. L. Macdonald, 

 a Winnipeg gentleman, who, for ten years, hunted on the upper 

 Mackenzie. The accounts of the two latter agree in all important 

 points, except that Mr. Macdonald considers the Wood Buffalo a 

 mere variety of the prairie animal, while Mignault, whose experience 

 is much greater, maintains, with the Indians, that it is distinct ; 

 urging also, in support of his opinion, that the last Prairie Buffalo 

 ever seen in the valley, was killed in 186&. It was a solitary, 

 mangy bull, a complete outcast, and this needed not to have been his 

 condition had the Wood Buffaloes been his immediate kindred. 



All my informants agree that the Wood Buffalo differs, chiefly, 

 from its prairie relative in being much larger, and considerably 

 darker in color. Mignault adds that its legs are proportionately 

 shorter, its horns less robust and more curved inwards, its hair is 

 shorter, finer, entirely without curl, and all over of a very dark 

 brown — almost a black in winter,— but in summer assuming a, hue 

 similar to that of the prairie animal. 



Capt. Butler, who traversed, the Peace River . valley in 1871', 

 wrote as follows: ■ " But, although, the Moose are still as numerous 

 on Peace River as they were in days far removed from, the present 

 there is another animal which has almost wholly disappeared." 



The giant form of the Wood Buffalo no longer darkens the steep, 

 lofty shores. When first Mackenzie beheld the long reaches of the 

 river, the " gentle lawns," which alternated with " abrupt precipices," 

 were "enlivened" by vast herds of buffaloes. This was in 1793. 

 Thirty-three vears later, Sir G-eoi-ge Simpson also ascended the river 

 with his matchless Iroquois crew, yet no Buffalo darkened the lofty 

 shores. 



