MAMMALIA. , 279 
[82.] 1. Bos Americanus. (Gmelin.) American Bison. 
“Genus. Bos. 
“Taurus Mexicanus. HERNANDEZ, Mez., p. 587. Fig. (malé.) An. 165]. 
Taureau sauvage. HENNEPIN, Nouv. Decouv., vol. i., p. 186. Fig. (malé.) An. 1699. , 
The buffalo. Lawson, Carol.,p.115. Fig. CarEesny, Carol., Append. xxxvii. tab. 20. Harmon, Journey, p. 415. 
; FRanxuin, First Journey, p. 113; with a plate of a buffalo-pound, p. 110. 
“Bison. Ray, Synop. Quadr., p.71. PENNANT, Arctic Zool. vol.i. p.1. Lone, Exped., vol. iii. p. 68. 
‘Bos Americanus.. GMELIN, Syst. Sapine, Franklin's Journey, p. 668. 
American wild ox, or bison. WarDEN, United States, vol. i. p. 248. 
Peecheek. Atconauins. (Nochena peecheek. « Bison cow.) 
“Moostoosh.. Crrrs. Adgiddah. CHEPEWYANS. : 
Buffalo. Hupson’s Bay Travers. Le beuf. Canaprian VOYAGERS. 
Itis unknown to the Esauimavx of the Polar Sea. 
At the period when Europeans began to form settlements in North America, 
this animal was occasionally met with on the Atlantic coast; but even then 
it appears to have been rare to the eastward of the Apalachian mountains, 
-for Lawson has thought it to be a fact worth recording, that two were killed in 
-one season on Cape Fear River. As early as the first discovery of Canada, it was 
unknown in that country, and no mention of it whatever occurs in the Voyages du 
Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois, nor in the Nova Francia of De Monts, who 
obtained the first monopoly of the fur trade. Theodat, whose history of Canada 
was published in 1636, merely says that he was informed that bulls existed in the 
remote western countries*. Warden mentions that at no very distant date herds 
of them existed in the western parts of Pennsylvania; and that as late as the 
year 1766, they were pretty numerous in Kentucky; but they have gradually 
retired before the white population, and are now, he says, rarely seen to the south 
of the Ohio, or on the east side of the Mississippi. They still exist, however, in 
vast) numbers in Louisiana, roaming in countless herds over the prairies that 
are watered by the Arkansa, Platte, Missouri, and upper branches of the Saskat- 
chewan and Peace rivers. Great Slave Lake, in latitude 60°, was at one time 
the northern boundary of their range; but of late years, according to the testimony 
of the natives, they have taken possession of the flat limestone district of Slave 
‘Point, on the north side of that lake, and have wandered to the vicinity of Great 
“Marten Lake, in latitude 63° or 64°. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the 
* His words are,—“On tient qu’il y a des dains en quelques contrées ; mais pour des buffles, le P. Joseph m’a asseuré 
€n avoir veu des peaux entieres entres les mains d’un sauvage de pays fort esloigné ; jen’en ay point veu, mais je croy-ce 
bon Pere.”—Sacarp-THECDAT, Histoire du Canada, p. 756. 
