THE EXTEKMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 383 



they may have reached as low as 25°, they scarcely passed beyond the 

 27th or 28th degree (north latitude), at least in the inhabited and known 

 portions of the country." 



New Mexico. — In 1542 Coronado, while on his celebrated march, 

 met with vast herds of buffalo on the Upper Pecos Eiver, since which 

 the presence of the species in the valley of the Pecos has been well 

 known. In describing the journey of Espejo down the Pecos Eiver in 

 the year 1584, Davis says (Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, p. 260) : 

 " They passed down a river they called Bio de las Vacas, or the Eiver 

 of Oxen [the river Pecos, and the same Cow Eiver that Vaca describes, 

 says Professor Allen], and was so named because of the great number 

 of buffaloes that fed upon its banks. They traveled down this river 

 the distance of 120 leagues, all the way passing through great herds of 

 buffaloes." 



Professor Allen locates the western boundary of the buffalo in New 

 Mexico even as far west as the western side of Eio Grande del Norte. 



Utah. — It is well known that buffaloes, though in very small num- 

 bers, once inhabited northeastern Utah, and that a few were killed by 

 the Mormon settlers prior to 1840 in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake. 

 In the museum at Salt Lake City I was shown a very ancient mounted 

 head of a buffalo bull which was said to have been killed in the Salt 

 Lake Valley. It is doubtful that such was really fact. There is no 

 evidence that the bison ever inhabited the southwestern half of Utah, 

 and, considering the general sterility of the Territory as a whole pre- 

 vious to its development by irrigation, it is surprising that any buffalo 

 in his senses would ever set foot in it at all. 



Idaho. — The former range of the bison probably embraced the whole 

 of Idaho. Fremont states that in the spring of 1824 " the buffalo were 

 spread in immense numbers over the Green Eiver and Bear Eiver 

 Valleys, and through all the country lying between the Colorado, or 

 Green Eiver of the Gulf of California, and Lewis' Fork of the Columbia 

 Eiver, the meridian of Fort Hall then forming the western limit of their 

 range. [In J. K. Townsend's " Narrative of a Journey across the Eocky 

 Mountains," in 1834, he records the occurrence of herds near the Mellade 

 and Boise and Salmon Eivers, ten days' journey — 200 miles — west of 

 Fort Hall.] The buffalo then remained for many years in that country, 

 and frequently moved down the valley of the Columbia, on both sides 

 of the river, as far as the Fishing Falls. Below this point they never 

 descended in any numbers. About 1834 or 1835 they began to diminish 

 A r ery rapidly, and continued to decrease until 1838 or 1840, when, with 

 the country we have just described, they entirely abandoned all the 

 waters of the Pacific north of Lewis's Fork of the Columbia [now called 

 Snake] Eiver. At that time the Flathead Indians were in the habit of 

 finding their buffalo on the heads of Salmon Eiver and other streams of 

 the Columbia. 



