1908.] 



MAMMALS. 



147 



basca, and between Birch Mountains and Atliabasca River, and ranging down 

 to Poplar Point, en tlie Atliabasca, another band said to contain about 20 was 

 seen. Altogether we have only about ISO head of wood buffalo in this vast extent 

 of territory. The paucity of their numbers is, to some extent, a protection 

 to them. If they escape epidemics and such a winter as almost exterminated 

 them on the Upper Peace some years ago, they may possil)ly increase. When- 

 ever the Indians come across a band they try to exterminate them whether 

 they need them for food or not. They try to drive them into a bog, if one be 

 convenient, and, if they succeed in this, their object is soon accomplished, for 

 the poor brutes mire in the bog and are quickly killed. « 



The same explorer, from information obtained in 1891, states: 



The haunt of the wood buffalo lies north and west of the Athabasca River, 

 across the Peace to the Liard River, and at Fort Liard it was reported that two 

 of them had crossed the Liard and had been seen in the mountains to the north- 

 west of the fort. Compared with the area of the district they inhabit, their 

 numbers are very small, probably not exceeding 300 in all. This is in striking 

 contrast with their numbers as reported 'half a century ago, when it was no 

 uncommon thing for a few Indians, in the neighborhood of Dunvegan and 

 St. John, on JPeace River, to go out and in a few days to procure sufiicient 

 meat to supply their wants for a good part of the winter. * * * ^pi^g 

 explanation given is that a heavy fall of rain occurred in one of the winter 

 months, about twenty-five years ago. which completely saturated the snow, 

 which was then frozen, and converted into an immense cake of ice, and the buf- 

 falo and all animals that graze and do not browse were nearly exterminated.^ 



Frank Russell had an unsuccessful hunt for the animals in Janu- 

 ary, 1894, in the Buffalo Eiver region, southwest of Fort Resolution. 

 He says : 



Black Head, an old Yellow Knife chief, living at the mouth of the Riviere au 

 Jean, told me that he had killed '])]enty of buffaloes" in the delta of the Slave 

 River. About fifteen years ago a few were killed near [Fort] Liard, but they 

 are seldom seen in that quarter.^ 



In February, 1894. Caspar "\'\liitney found a herd of about a dozen 

 to the westward of Fort Smith, and estimated the total number then 

 living as about 150. 



Thomas Johnson gives extracts from the report of Inspector Jarvis, 

 Tvho was sent by the Canadian government, in January, 189T, to 

 report on the condition of the bison and other game animals of the 

 Athabaska region. His report, in part, was as follows: 



The range of a scattered herd of about 300 is from Peace Point to Salt River, 

 and from Salt River to within 20 miles of Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake. 

 I met a Mr. Handbury, an English sportsman, who ^ * ^ liad just returned 

 from an unsuccessful buffalo hunt, but he saw the tracks and beds, of about 

 60 buffalo.^ 



^ Ann. Rept. Dept. Interior (Canada) for 1889, Part VIII. p. 01. 1890. 

 * Ann. Rept. Dept. Interior (Canada) for 1892. Part VII. p. 39, 1893. 

 ^Expl. in Far North, p. 232. 1898. 

 ^Forest and Stream, XLIX, p. 323. Oct. 23, 1897. 



