72 
however, following after Lawson and Catesby, adopted the term Buffalo, 
which is now its accepted common name, and no more a misnomer than 
is “Rabbit” for the American Hare, or “Robin” as applied to Turdus migra- 
torus. 
Distribution.—The range of the Bison formerly extended from Great 
Slave Lake, latitude 62°, to the north-eastern provinces of Maine, and as 
far south at latitude 25°. 
In British North America the range extended from the Rocky Moun- 
tains to a line running south-eastward from Great Slave Lake to the 
Lake of the Woods. 
In the United States it extended west of the Rocky Mountains, even 
to the Sierra Nevada ranges. Within fifty years it occupied the country 
about the headwaters of the Green and Grand Rivers. 
Kast of the Rocky Mountains its range extended southward far beyond 
the Rio Grande, and eastward throughout the region drained by the 
Ohio River and its tributaries. Its north -rn limit east of the Mississippi 
was the Great Lakes, along which it extended eastward to near the eastern 
end of Lake Hrie. It is known to have occurred south of the Tennes- 
see and east of the AUTlefg neh aules; chiefly in the upper districts of North 
and South Carolina. 
The present range of the Bison is in two distinct and comparatively 
small areas--the northern, from the sources of the principal southern 
tributaries of the Yellowstone, northward into the British possessions, 
embracing an area not much greater than the present territory of Mon- 
tana; the southern district is chiefly limited to Western Kansas, a part 
of the Indian Territory, and North-western Texas—a region about equal 
to the present State of Texas. 
The Bison in Ohio.—Mr.J. A. Allen has in his memoir a very detailed 
account of the distribution of the Buffalo and the history of its extermi- 
nation in the region of the Mississippi, drawn from the early histories 
and explorations. Vaudreuil, writing about 1720, in his “Memoirs of 
the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi,’ speaks of the 
abundance of Buffalo on the Sandusky and Ohio Rivers. La Hanton, in 
his description of Lake Erie, about 1687, says: 
‘‘T can not express what quantities of deer and turkeys are to be found in these woods 
and in the vast woods that lie upon the south side of the lake. At the bottom of the 
lake we find beeves upon the banks of two pleasant rivers that disembouge into it with- 
out cataracts or rapid currents.” 
Vaudreuil, in 1718, says of Lake Erie : 
‘There is no need of fasting on either side of this lake, deer are to be found there in 
such abundance. Buffaloes are found on the south, but not on the north shore.” 
