54 
the American Bison,” published by the Department of the 
Interior in 1877 : — 
“The habitat of the Bison formerly extended from Great 
Slave Lake, on the north, in latitude about 62°, to the north- 
eastern provinces of Mexico, as far south as latitude 25°. Its 
range in British North America extended from the Rocky 
mountains on the west to the wooded highlands about six 
hundred miles west of Hudson’s Bay, or about to a line run- 
ning south-eastward from the Great Slave Lake to the Lake of 
the Woods. Its range in the United States formerly embraced 
a considerable area west of the Rocky mountains — its recent 
remains having been found in Oregon as far west as the Blue 
mountains, and further south it occupied the Great Slave Lake 
basin, extending westward even to the Sierra Nevada moun- 
tains, while less than fifty years since it existed over the head- 
waters of the Green and Grand rivers, and other sources of 
the Colorado. East of the Rocky mountains its range ex- 
tended southward far beyond the Rio Grande, and eastward 
through the region drained by the Ohio and its tributaries. 
Its northern limit, east of the Mississippi, was the great lakes, 
along which it extended to near the eastern end of Lake Erie. 
It appears not to have occurred south of the Tennessee river, 
and only to a limited extent east of the Alleghenies, chiefly 
in the upper districts of North and South Carolina. 
“ Its present range embraces two distinct and comparatively 
small areas. The southern is chiefly limited to Western Kan- 
sas, a part of the Indian Territory, and North-western Texas — 
in all together embracing a region about equal in size to the 
present State of Kansas. The northern district extends from 
the sources of the principal southern tributaries of the Yellow- 
stone northward into the British possessions, embracing an 
area not much greater than the present territory of Montana. 
Over these regions, however, it is rapidly disappearing, and 
at its present rate of decrease will certainly become wholly 
extinct within the next quarter of a century.” 
Over near the whole of this country the Bison formerly 
ranged in vast herds, and the destructive side of man’s nature 
cannot be better shown than in the contemplation of the com- 
paratively small area to which they are now restricted. Yet 
even here they must be almost countless in numbers to with- 
stand even for a short time the prodigious slaughter which 
goes on year after year among them. It has been estimated, 
by careful and competent authorities, that from the year 1870 
