BISON. 



parts of the body. It grows, according to Law- 

 son to a vast size, and has been found to weigh 

 sixteen hundred, and even two thousand four 

 hundred pounds ; and the strongest man cannot 

 hft one of the skins from the ground. 



It is difficult, as Mr. Pennant observes, to say 

 in what manner these animals migrated from tlie 

 old to the new world ; but it seems most probable 

 that it was from the north of Asia, which, in an- 

 cient times, might have been stocked with them 

 to its most extreme parts, notwithstanding they 

 are now extinct in those regions. At that period 

 the two continents might have been united be- 

 tween Tckutki noss and the opposite headlands of 

 America ; and the many islands oif that promon- 

 tory, with the Aleutian, oi' Nezv Fo.v islands, some- 

 w^hat more distant, may with great reason be sup- 

 posed to be fragments of land which joined the 

 two continents, and formed their insular state by 

 the might}^ convulsion which divided Asia and 

 America 



In America the Bison occurs in the regions six 

 hundred miles west of Hudson's Bay, which is 

 their most northern residence. From thence they 

 are met with in great droves as low as Cihole^ in 

 lat. 33. a little north of California, and also in the 

 province of Mivej^a, in New Mexico ; and the 

 species seems to cease immediately to the south 

 of these parts. They also inhabit Canada, to the 

 west of the lakes ; and in greater abundance in 



* Hist Carol, p. 116. 



t Penn. Arct. Zool. 



