380 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



Up to the time of Moore's voyage to Georgia tlie interior was almost 

 wholly unexplored, and it is almost certain that had not the "large 

 herds of buffalo on the main-land" existed within a distance of 20 or 30 

 miles or less from the coast, the colonists would have had no knowledge 

 of them ; nor would the Indians have taken to the war-path against the 

 whites at Darien u under pretense of hunting buffalo." 



Alabama. — Having established the existence of the bison in north- 

 western Georgia almost as far down as the center of the State, and in 

 Mississippi down to the neighborhood of the coast, it was naturally 

 expected that a search of historical records would reveal evidence that 

 the bison once inhabited the northern half of Alabama. A most careful 

 search through all the records bearing upon the early history and ex- 

 ploration of Alabama, to be found in the Library of Congress, failed to 

 discover the slightest reference to the existence of the species in that 

 State, or even to the use of buffalo skins by any of the Alabama In- 

 dians. While it is possible that such a hiatus really existed, in this 

 instance its existence would be wholly unaccountable. I believe that 

 the buffalo once inhabited the northern half of Alabama, even though 

 history fails to record it. 



Louisiana and Mississippi. — At the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century, buffaloes were plentiful in southern Mississippi and Louisiana, 

 not only down to the coast itself, from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi, but 

 even in the very Delta of the Mississippi, as the following record shows. 

 In a " Memoir addressed to Count de Pontchartrain," December 10, 

 1697, the author, M. de Bemonville, describes the country around the 

 mouth of the Mississippi, now the State of Louisiana, and further 

 says : * 



4i A great abundance of wild cattle are also found there, which might 

 be domesticated by rearing up the young calves." Whether these ani- 

 mals were buffaloes might be considered an open question but for the 

 following additional information, which affords positive evidence: 

 "The trade in furs and peltry would be immensely valuable and ex- 

 ceedingly profitable. We could also draw from thence a great quantity 

 of buffalo hides every year, as the plains are filled with the animals." 



In the same volume, page 47, in a document entitled " Annals of Loui- 

 siana from 1698 to 1722, by M. Penicaut" (1698). the author records 

 the presence of the buffalo on the Gulf coast on the banks of the Bay 

 St. Louis, as follows: "The next day we left Pea Island, and passed 

 through the Little Bigolets, which led into the sea about three leagues 

 from the Bay of St. Louis. We encamped at the entrance of the bay, 

 near a fountain of water that flows from the hills, and which was called 

 at this time Belle Fountain. We hunted during several days upon the 

 coast of this bay, and filled our boats with the meat of the deer, buffa- 

 loes, and other wild game which we had killed, and carried it to the 

 fort (Biloxi)." 



* Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, B. F. French, 18G9, first series, p. 2. 



