MAMMALIA. 279 



[82.] 1. Bos Americanus. (Gmelin.) American Bison. 



"Genus. Bos. 



Taurus Mexicanus. Hernandez, Mex., p. 587- Fig. (male.) An. 1651. 

 Taureau sauvage. Hennepin, Nouv. Decouv., vol. i., p. 186. Fig. (male.) An. 1699. 

 The buffalo. Lawson, Carol, p. 115. Fig. Catesby, Carol., Append, xxxvii. tab. 20. Harmon, Journey, p. 415. 



Franklin, 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. Long, Exped., vol. iii. p. 68. 

 Bos Americanus. Gmelin, Syst. Sabine, Franklin's Journey, p. 668. 

 American wild ox, or bison. "Warden, United States, vol. i. p. 248. 

 Peeclieek. Algonquins. (Nochena peeeheek. Bison cow.) 

 Moostoosh. Crees. Adgiddah. Chepewyans. 

 Buffalo. Hudson's Bay Traders. Le bceuf. Canadian Voyagers. 

 It is unknown to the Esquimaux 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 contrees ; mais pour des luffles, le P. Joseph m'a asseure 

 en avoir veu des peaux entieres entres les mains d'un sauvage de pays fort esloigne ; je n'en ay point veu, mais je croy ce 

 bon Pere." — Sagard-Thecdat, Histoiredu Canada, p. 756. 



