ORIGIN OP LIFE IN AMERICA 
supply being consequently inexhaustible. As long as these 
wild tribes only possessed the bow and arrow, bisons were 
comparatively safe from their depredations, in spite of the 
great drives that they were accustomed to organise. On the 
introduction of firearms, the Indians assisted civilised man 
to the best of their ability in his utterly wanton destruction 
of these helpless creatures. The building of railroads across 
the continent naturally hastened the process of extermination, 
the completion of the Union Pacific line dividing for ever 
the bisons of the United States into two great herds. These 
subsequently became known as the northern and southern 
herds. The great slaughter of the bison really only began 
in 1871. Four years later the southern herd had ceased to 
exist. The year 1881 witnessed a similar destruction of the 
northern herd, and at present this most picturesque and im¬ 
pressive member of the American fauna is practically extinct 
in its wild state, but for the small herds alluded to in northern 
Canada (see Fig. 5). There are other small herds preserved 
in the Yellowstone Park and in some reservations in western 
Canada. In them the bison can no longer be said to live 
altogether in the wild state. 
I mentioned that the bison was looked upon as one of the 
most typically American species. Nevertheless, we have in 
eastern Europe a bison which is closely allied to the American 
species, and from the circumstance that it formerly roamed 
over a large part of that continent, it might be argued that its 
cousin from the New World is but a new-comer and in no way 
typical of America. A certain amount of support for that 
argument might be derived from the well-known fact of a 
Pliocene bison (Bison sivalensis) being known from India 
and Java and another from China. But in America there are 
likewise bison remains (Bison alleni) which were considered 
by Professor Marsh to belong to the Pliocene series, while 
Professor Cope described one even from Nicaragua and 
Southern Mexico (Bison scaphoceras). More recently, how¬ 
ever, Dr. Lucas * has clearly demonstrated that Cope’s bison 
is a sheep, and that Marsh’s specimens are probably referable 
to the lower Pleistocene, so that it does seem likely after 
Lucas, F. A., “ Fossil Bisons of North America,” pp. 75G— 7GG. 
