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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vol. XXIV, 1917 
9. Mrs. E. B. Hayden. The wife of Dr. Hayden. She came 
to the county in 1878 and lived at Lake View, but was a fre- 
quent visitor to the Raccoon river woods. 
10. H. B. Smith. Mr. Smith came to the vicinity of Odebolt 
in 1876. He died a few years ago but his wife still maintains 
the collection of birds and animals which they formed. 
11. H. P. Dudley. Mr. Dudley traveled through Sac county 
in early days with his father, who was an itinerant minister. 
12. J. A. Spurred. “I have always taken a keen interest in 
birds and animals since early childhood, and have kept a note- 
book of my observations since July, 1907/’ 
A part of the scientific names I obtained by correspondence 
with the Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 
and the remainder from “The Mammals of Illinois and Wiscon- 
sin,'” by Charles B. Cory, Publication 153, Zoological Series, 
Field Museum of Natural History. 
Sac county was first settled in 1854, at Grant City and Sac 
City. For many years the settlers depended on wild game and 
trapping to furnish a large part of their living. Not until the 
railroads came about 1870, and furnished markets for bulky farm 
products, did the county become thickly settled. 
The topography is a rolling prairie, and at first settlement 
there were many marshes, sloughs, and ponds in the eastern half 
of the county. The eastern half is drained by the Raccoon river 
which, at the time of settlement, was bordered by a timber 
fringe from one to four miles wide. The principal enlargements 
were Grant grove at Grant City and Lee’s grove eight miles 
north of Sac City, also Cory grove south of Sac City. The 
western half of the county is drained by the Boyer river which 
was, and is, timberless except for some willow brush and trees 
along a few miles in the southern part of the county. Today, the 
timber fringe of the Raccoon river is very much reduced, and 
artificial groves are scattered all over the prairie portions of 
the county. 
ANNOTATED LIST. 
Bison or buffalo ( Bison bison). Buffalo were found only as 
stragglers after the first white settlers came to the county in 
1854, but must have existed much more abundantly previously 
as shown by the hundreds of buffalo bones thrown up by the 
dredge when Rush lake was drained in 1911 (2). Many bones 
