THE BUFFALO AND HIS FATE. 47 



had a curious and permanent effect on the buffaloes. The overland route 

 followed up the Kansas and Platte Rivers, and thence westward by the 

 North Platte to the South Pass. The buffaloes were soon all driven 

 from this line of travel ; and the great herd which had stretched from 

 the Rio Grande to the Saskatchewan was permanently divided into 

 two a northern and a southern herd which were more and more 

 widely separated by the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. 

 Year by year since, the limits of the range of each division have been 

 contracting under relentless persecution and the encroachments of civil- 

 ization, until now they are easily circumscribed. The poor beasts have 

 been hunted by the Indians, have been followed incessantly by white 

 men professional hunters, sportsmen, hide-seekers, and soldiers who 

 have been afforded easy access to their haunts by the railroads which 

 have penetrated to their ancient pastures, and been given the means of 

 keeping up the hunt by the nearness of the frontier settlements to the 

 resorts of each herd. Enormous destruction has ensued in Kansas and 

 Colorado, and has had the effect to drive the southern division south- 

 ward and southwestward into Texas, where hunters can not or (on ac- 

 count of Indians) dare not follow them. They are, therefore, just now 

 (1876) afforded temporary rest from persecution ; but, unless legal in- 

 terference be quickly made and strict regulations rigorously enforced, 

 the fate of the buffalo south of the Platte will be a repetition of its 

 history east of the Mississippi speedy extermination. 



As to the northern herd, while twenty years ago buffaloes were ac- 

 customed to frequent the whole region between the Missouri River and 

 the forty-ninth parallel, from the western boundary of Dakota to the 

 Rocky Mountains, and even far into their valleys, they are now re- 

 stricted to the comparatively small area drained by the southern trib- 

 utaries of the Yellowstone, and northward over the most of Montana 

 to the Missouri. North of the Missouri River almost a separate sub- 

 division of the herd seems to exist, which feeds between longitude 

 106 and the Rocky Mountains, and northward to the wooded region 

 of the Athabasca and Peace Rivers. Within thirty years they have 

 become extirpated over half of this fertile region north of our boundary, 

 and their numbers, probably, have correspondingly decreased. 



It thus appears that in three quarters of a century the buffalo has 

 been compelled to relinquish a habitat, covering a third of the conti- 

 nent, for two regions not greater together than the present Territories 

 of Montana and Dakota ; and they were formerly just as numerous 

 over the whole extent as they now are in favored spots within their 

 range. Hence the theory that they have not been so much reduced in 

 numbers, as they have been circumscribed in range and concentrated 

 upon narrow limits, will not hold good. Over much of this great re- 

 gion they were actually killed on the spot, not driven out. 



