point, the District of Columbia.




III. ABUNDANCE.


Of all the quadrupeds that have lived upon the earth, probably no other
species has ever marshaled such innumerable hosts as those of the
American bison. It would have been as easy to count or to estimate the
number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number of buffaloes
living at any given time during the history of the species previous to
1870. Even in South Central Africa, which has always been exceedingly
prolific in great herds of game, it is probable that all its quadrupeds
taken together on an equal area would never have more than equaled the
total number of buffalo in this country forty years ago.

To an African hunter, such a statement may seem incredible, but it
appears to be fully warranted by the literature of both branches of the
subject.

Not only did the buffalo formerly range eastward far into the forest
regions of western New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Georgia, but in some places it was so abundant as to cause remark. In
Mr. J. A. Allen's valuable monograph[21] appear a great number of
interesting historical references on this subject, as indeed to every
other relating to the buffalo, a few of which I will take the liberty of
quoting.