88 Frerp Museum or Naturat History — Zoéxroey, Vot. XI. 
Bison americanus ALLEN, Ninth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Surv., 1875 (1877), p. 445 
(Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, etc.). 
Bison Americanus LAPHAM, Trans. Wis. State Agr. Soc., II, 1852 (1853), p. 340 
(Wisconsin). AupuBon & BacHMaNn, Quadrupeds of N. Amer., II, 1854, p. 32 
(Illinois and Indiana). Kennicott, Trans. Ill. State Agr. Soc., I, 1853-54 
(1855), p. 580 (Cook Co., Illinois). OsBorn, Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., I, 1887-89 
(1890), p. 42 (Iowa). 
Bos Americanus Tuomas, Trans. Ill. State Agr. Soc., IV, 1859-60 (1861), p. 660 
(Illinois). Hoy, Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci. Arts & Letters, V, 1882, p. 256 (Wis- 
consin). 
Type locality — Southeastern United States. 
Distribution — Formerly ranging from Great Slave Lake south to 
northern Mexico and eastward throughout the greater part of the 
United States to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and South Caro- 
lina; now practically extinct except in Yellowstone Park and private 
preserves. A closely allied northern race (B. bison athabasce) 
still exists in a wild state in the Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie 
regions. 
Description — Adult male: Horns black, curved outward and upward; 
general color of upper parts, sides of body and back of hump pale 
brown; under parts dark brown; shoulders, including ‘‘hump” 
and upper neck, thickly covered with long brownish hair; head, 
neck and fore legs to the knees covered with long, shaggy, black- 
ish brown hair; feet black. Length about ro to 11 ft.; height 
at shoulder between 5 and 6 ft.; weight about 2,000 lbs. 
Adult female: Smaller; the body somewhat darker and hair 
of head and neck shorter; height at shoulder between 4 and 5 
feet; weight 700 to 1,000 lbs. 
Young calves are yellowish brown, palest on the under 
parts. The number of calves at a birth is usually one, rarely two. 
Of all the countless numbers of Buffalo which roamed throughout 
the United States a hundred years ago, roughly estimated at from 
40,000,000 tO 50,000,000, only about 2,000 probably remain alive to-day, 
all of which are preserved in government reservations or in private 
parks. 
Some idea of the slaughter of these animals during the last years, 
when they were still to be found in any numbers, and the rapidity 
with which they disappeared may be gained from the shipments of 
their skins from stations on the Northern Pacific R.R.*: In 1882, 
200,000; 1883, 40,000; 1884, 300; 1885, 0. In 1885, at almost every 
town along the line of the road, great piles of their bones were to be 
*Hornaday, W. T. Ext. Amer. Bison, 1889, Pp. 513. 
