2i8 THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
and blunted. Well-grown horns usually measure 
from 1 6 to i8 inches in length, although these 
dimensions are in some cases exceeded by a couple of 
inches or so. The horns are also set lower down on 
the head than in the European bison ; and the skull 
differs from that of the latter by the greater con- 
vexity of the forehead, and the still more tubular 
form of the sockets of the eyes. There are fourteen 
pairs of ribs. 
In the days of its prime the American bison ranged 
over the area lying between the Rocky Mountains 
and the Alleghenies, and from Mexico northwards to 
the Peace River; but its head-quarters were the 
grassy prairies extending from the Saskatchewan 
valley to the Rio Grande. 
The wood-bison is a rather larger animal than the 
bison of the prairies, and has somewhat more slender 
horns, both of which features may be indicative of 
closer affinity with the European species. It is 
mainly by this race that the American bison is 
represented at the present day in a truly wild con- 
dition. In an article published some years ago in the 
Asian newspaper 'it was stated that — 
" A few years ago wood-buffalo were found over a 
very much larger area than at present, for we hear of 
them having been killed as far west as Fort St. John 
and Fort Liard, along the foot-hills of the Rocky 
Mountains, eastward across the Slave and Athabasca 
Rivers, and southward toward the higher land. 
That they were very rare as far north-west as Fort 
Liard is shown by the fact that in 1866, when the 
tracks of one bull were seen by the Indians about 
twenty miles north of the post, they did not know 
what it was, and were afraid to shoot it, until a man 
