55 
THE AMERICAN ELK. 
is soft and easily damaged. One horn was, unfortunately, 
broken, and has been reproduced each year successively in its 
damaged condition, consisting of a single fork about two feet 
long, while the other antler reaches its full development. 
The American Bison or Buffalo (Bison americanus ) may 
be observed to very good advantage in the large pen adjoining 
the Elk. 
Of the geographical distribution of this species past and 
present, Prof. J. A. Allen treats as follows in a “ History of 
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 
