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