1% 
dectease of the tain-fall, which I believe to be a concomitant of the disappearance of ths 
glacial period. 
‘‘The question of the origin of the Buffalo, and its relation to the earliest tribes of 
people in this district, is made still more complicated by the fact that there is no doubt 
that there was an earlier and closely related species of Buffalo in this district, probably 
coeval with the Mammoth and Mastodon. and probably with the Caribou and Elk, 
which had doubtless disappeared before the coming of any race of men that has as yet 
been identified in this country. 
‘‘The succession of events in this region, as far as the species of Bison are concerned, 
seems to have been somewhat as follows, viz. : 
‘1, The existence of the Bison latifrons with the Mammoth and its contemporaries, 
the Mastodon, Musk Ox (Seotherium cavifrons, Leidy), ete; This species, like its cone 
temporaries, by its size gave evidence of the even climate and abundant vegetation of 
the time just following, and probably in part during the glacial period. 
‘©2, The disappearance of this fauna, followed by the coming of a race (mound 
builders) that retained no distinct traditions, and have left no art records of the presence 
of any of the large animals of the preceding time. 
‘3. The disappearance of this race from the region north of the Tennessee, proba- 
bly leaving representatives in the Natchez group of Indians, followed by the occupation 
of the country by a race that greatly extended the limits of the treeless plains to the 
eastward, and so permitted the coming of the modern Bison into this region. 
“‘} have long been disposed to look upon the succeeding glacial periods as the most 
effective causes of the changes that led to the determination of new specific characters 
among animals; and I am strongly disposed to think that in the Bison americanus we 
have the descendant of the bison latifrons, modified by existence in the new conditions 
of soil and climate to which it was driven by the great changes closing the last ice age. 
‘“When the exploration of Big Bone Lick is completed, it will doubtless show that 
there was an interval of some thousands of years between these two species.” 
FAMILY CERVIDA, 
These are herbivorous animals, having the stomach in four compart- 
ments, of the ordinary ruminant pattern. Dentition: i. $3; ¢. } >; pm. 
5-3; m. 33. Horns deciduous, solid, more or less branched, developed 
from the frontal bone, covered, at first, by a soft, hairy integument (velvet). 
When the horns attain their full size (which they do in a very short 
time), there arises at the base of each a ring of tubercles known as the 
“burr”; this compresses, and finally obliterates the blood-vessels supply- 
ing the integument, which dries up and is stripped off, leaving the bone 
hard and insensible; the horns are sexual characters, wanting in the 
female, excepting in the Reindeer (and very rarely in the Common Deer, 
C. virginianus) ; they are usually present in the male; they are shed an- 
nually, the separation of the beam from the pedicel taking place just 
below the burr. 
The Cervide are a widely distributed family, few regions being without 
one or more peculiar species; a notable proportion are found in the New 
