DEPARTMENT OF LIVING ANIMALS. 41 ( J 



various ages, the moose, caribou, black tail deer, beaver, otter, sea otter, walrus and 

 grizzly bear. 



"The story of the great buffalo slaughter is very graphically told. A mounted speci- 

 men ami a series <>t' .superb photographic enlargements of t lie various specimens com- 

 posing the large mounted group in the National Museum, represent the species as it 

 unci' nourished. Opposite these hang another series of pictures, three of which are 

 large oil paintings, illustrating the methods employed in the destruction of the 

 buffalo. The tirst ia a representation of the 'Chase on Horseback/ which the label 

 deciaies to have been the only fair ami sportsmanlike mode of hunting ever practiced 

 by either reds or whites. Nex1 to this hangs a magnificent oil painting, executed, 

 by special order, by J. H. Moser, of Washington, entitled 'The Still Hunt.' This 

 represents the typical still-hunter, who killed buffalo by the hundred for hides, 

 worth a dollar each. The hunter is Lying flat on the ground at the top of the ridge 

 'pumping' bullets from a Sharp's rifle at a bunch of buffalo, on which ho has "got 

 a stand." A dozen or more have fallen, but the stupid brutes stand there in wonder, 

 while the remorseless butcher pours in the bullets of death. In the distance a snowy 

 plain, backed by snow-clad mountains, is 'black with buffalo,* to the number of ten 

 thousand or more. The picture is a very striking and truthful representation of the 

 method by which the destruction of seven or eight million buffalo was accomplished 

 iu a few short years. 



"Other pictures in this series represent the other methods employed iu killing 

 buffalo, chiefly by Indians, such as impounding, hunting on suowshoes, hunting in 

 disguise, ' the surround,' etc. On three large flat screens are shown samples of 'the 

 objects lor which the buffalo was exterminated.' One is a skin of a largo buffalo 

 bull, and another is a cowskin, both in a raw state, just as they came from 'the 

 range,' where tin- former sold for the insignificant sum of $1.25 and the latter brought 

 even less. A third specimen is a bull hide, taken in the summer when almost bare 

 of hair, for use as leather, ami having only about half the value of the robe. The label 

 attached to this specimen fitly characterizes the hunters who killed buffaloes iu sum- 

 for hides as "greedy wretches.' 



"Last come two objects to show what remains of our most valuable American quad- 

 ruped. < >n a section of Montana prairie, 8 feet by 10, lies the complete skeleton 

 of a Large buffalo bull, just as it was found bleaching on the range, and just as ten 

 thousand others lie today. The powerful action of the weather has stripped every 

 particle of flesh from the bones, and Left them clean and white, but still attached to 



each other by their dried-up ligaments, the Legs in position precisely as the animal 

 fell. It is a ghastly object, and surely mast awaken a feeling of remorse in the breast 

 of every old buffalo hunter who comes face to face with it as he passes along the 

 main aisle. Hanging near it is another large oil painting by Moser, entitled " Where 

 flu- Millions Have Gone." It represents a Bcene on the Montana buffalo range as it 

 is to-day. A wide plain is covered with bleaching buffalo skeletons, similar to the 

 actual skeleton already mentioned, as weird and ghastly a scene as could bo found 

 anywhere outside a charnel-house. 



" One of the most startling features of this strange display is a lot of seventy tanned 

 skins of the rare and little-known Rocky Mountain goat, which the label explains 

 were purchased in New York, fully tanned and dressed, at $1.50 each, and originally 

 sold in Denver at Mi cents each, lobe made into cheap rugs and mats. This shows 



what railroads and breech-loaders are doing for the game in the West. When it is 



possible lor the pot-hunters to gel ai even the mountain -oat in its remote and dan- 



gerous fastnesses, kill them by the score and sell their hides at 50 cents each, we can 

 ut on our fingers the number of years within which the total extinction of this 

 rare and interesting quadruped is likely to be accomplished, in this country at Least. 

 'Act. in newspapers occasionally report hunters as hauling in a wagon load of 

 mountain goats at a time. The Cincinnati lot includes the pelts of adult male, and 

 females and young of ill ages, even to kids If the members of Stat< and ferritoi 



