NUMBERS OF WILD QUADRUPEDS. 
81 
American quadruped sufficiently gregarious in habits, or suffi¬ 
ciently multiplied in numbers, to form really large herds, is the 
bison, or, as he is commonly called in America, the buffalo; and 
this animal is confined to the prairie region of the Mississippi 
basin and Northern Mexico. The engineers sent out to survey 
railroad routes to the Pacific estimated the number of a single 
herd of bisons seen within the last ten years on the great plains 
near the Upper Missouri, at not less than 200,000, and yet the 
range occupied by this animal is now very much smaller in 
area than it was when the whites first established themselves 
on the prairies.* But it must be remarked that the American 
buffalo is a migratory animal, and that, at the season of his 
annual journeys, the whole stock of a vast extent of pasture 
ground is collected into a single army, which is seen at or 
very near any one point only for a few days during the entire 
season. Hence there is risk of great error in estimating the 
numbers of the bison in a given district from the magnitude 
of the herds seen at or about the same time at a single place 
of observation ; and, upon the whole, it is neither proved nor 
probable that the bison was ever, at any one time, as numerous 
in North America as the domestic bovine species is at present. 
The elk, the moose, the musk ox, the caribou, and the smaller 
quadrupeds popularly embraced under the general name of 
deer,f though sufficient for the wants of a sparse savage popu- 
and even climbs over fallen trees, not only moving safely, but drawing 
timber over ground wholly impracticable for the light and agile horse. 
Oows, so constantly employed for draught in Italy, are never yoked or 
otherwise used for labor in America, except in the Slave States. 
* “ About five miles from camp we ascended to the top of a high hill, 
and for a great distance ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of 
buffalo upon it. Their number was variously estimated by the members 
of the party; by some as high as half a million. I do not think it any exag¬ 
geration to set it down at 200,000.”— Stevens’s Narrative and Final Re¬ 
port. Reports of Explorations and Surveys for Railroad to Pacific , vol. xii, 
book i, 1860. 
The next day, the party fell in with a “ buffalo trail,” where at least 
100,000 were thought to have crossed a slough. 
f The most zealous and successful New England hunter of whom I have 
G 
