102 NOTES TAKEN. 
of New England, he says, “The Indians have also made 
description of great Aeards of well groune beasts that live 
about the parts of this lake (Erocoise), now Lake Champlain, 
such as the Christian world (until this discovery,) hath not 
bin made acquainted with. 
“These beasts are of the bigness of a cowe, their flesh being 
very good foode, their hides good leather; their fleeces very 
useful, being a kind of woole, as fine almost as the woole of 
the beaver; and the salvages do make garments thereof. 
“Tt is tenne yeares since first the relation of these psu 
came to the eares of the English.” 
Another author (Purchas) states, that as early as in 1613, 
the adventurers in Virginia discovered a “slow kinde of 
cattell as bigge as kine, which were good meate.” 
In a work published in London, in 1589, by Hukluyt, it is 
stated, that in the island of New Foundland were found 
“ mightie beastes, like to camels in greatness, and their feete 
were cloven.” He then says, “I did see them farre off, not 
able to discerne them perfectly, but their steps showed that 
their feete were cloven, and bigger than the feefe of camels. 
I suppose them to be a kind of buffes, which I read to bee in 
the countreys adjacent, and very many in the firme land.” 
Colonel Fremont publishes some interesting statistics of 
these animals, in his report, and states the number ascer- 
tained to have been slaughtered in one year (1549) to be sia 
hundred thousand. With this rapid diminution in their 
numbers, they must in a few years be entirely exterminated, 
