The Extermination of the American Bison | Page 7

of this bay, and filled our boats with the meat of the deer,
buffaloes, and other wild game which we had killed, and carried it to
the fort (Biloxi)."
[Note 11: Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, B. F. French, 1869, first
series, p. 2.]
The occurrence of the buffalo at Natchez is recorded,[12] and also (p.
115) at the mouth of Red River, as follows: "We ascended the
Mississippi to Pass Manchac, where we killed fifteen buffaloes. The
next day we landed again, and killed eight more buffaloes and as many
deer."
[Note 12: Ibid., pp. 88-91.]
The presence of the buffalo in the Delta of the Mississippi was
observed and recorded by D'Iberville in 1699.[13]
[Note 13: Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, French, second series, p.
58.]
According to Claiborne,[14] the Choctaws have an interesting tradition
in regard to the disappearance of the buffalo from Mississippi. It relates
that during the early part of the eighteenth century a great drought
occurred, which was particularly severe in the prairie region. For three
years not a drop of rain fell. The Nowubee and Tombigbee Rivers dried

up and the forests perished. The elk and buffalo, which up to that time
had been numerous, all migrated to the country beyond the Mississippi,
and never returned.
[Note 14: Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State, p. 484.]
TEXAS.--It will be remembered that it was in southeastern Texas, in
all probability within 50 miles of the present city of Houston, that the
earliest discovery of the American bison on its native heath was made
in 1530 by Cabeza de Vaca, a half-starved, half-naked, and wholly
wretched Spaniard, almost the only surviving member of the celebrated
expedition which burned its ships behind it. In speaking of the buffalo
in Texas at the earliest periods of which we have any historical record,
Professor Allen says: "They were also found in immense herds on the
coast of Texas, at the Bay of St. Bernard (Matagorda Bay), and on the
lower part of the Colorado (Rio Grande, according to some authorities),
by La Salle, in 1685, and thence northwards across the Colorado,
Brazos, and Trinity Rivers." Joutel says that when in latitude 28° 51'
"the sight of abundance of goats and bullocks, differing in shape from
ours, and running along the coast, heightened our earnestness to be
ashore." They afterwards landed in St. Louis Bay (now called
Matagorda Bay), where they found buffaloes in such numbers on the
Colorado River that they called it La Rivière aux Boeufs.[15]
According to Professor Allen, the buffalo did not inhabit the coast of
Texas east of the mouth of the Brazos River.
[Note 15: The American Bisons, Living and Extinct, p. 132.]
It is a curious coincidence that the State of Texas, wherein the earliest
discoveries and observations upon the bison were made, should also
now furnish a temporary shelter for one of the last remnants of the great
herd.
MEXICO.--In regard to the existence of the bison south of the Rio
Grande, in old Mexico, there appears to be but one authority on record,
Dr. Berlandier, who at the time of his death left in MS. a work on the
mammals of Mexico. At one time this MS. was in the Smithsonian
Institution, but it is there no longer, nor is its fate even ascertainable. It

is probable that it was burned in the fire that destroyed a portion of the
Institution in 1865. Fortunately Professor Allen obtained and published
in his monograph (in French) a copy of that portion of Dr. Berlandier's
work relating to the presence of the bison in Mexico,[16] of which the
following is a translation:
[Note 16: The American Bisons, pp. 129-130.]
"In Mexico, when the Spaniards, ever greedy for riches, pushed their
explorations to the north and northeast, it was not long before they met
with the buffalo. In 1602 the Franciscan monks who discovered Nuevo
Leon encountered in the neighborhood of Monterey numerous herds of
these quadrupeds. They were also distributed in Nouvelle Biscaye
(States of Chihuahua and Durango), and they sometimes advanced to
the extreme south of that country. In the eighteenth century they
concentrated more and more toward the north, but still remained very
abundant in the neighborhood of the province of Bexar. At the
commencement of the nineteenth century we see them recede gradually
in the interior of the country to such an extent that they became day by
day scarcer and scarcer about the settlements. Now, it is not in their
periodical migrations that we meet them near Bexar. Every year in the
spring, in April or May, they advance toward the north, to return again
to the southern regions in September and October. The exact limits of
these annual migrations are unknown; it is, however, probable that in