HISTORY AND PROCEEDINGS OF 

 THE SOCIETY. 



THE national movement now on foot for the perma- 

 nent preservation of the Buffalo began in June, 1904, 

 when Mr. Ernest Harold Baynes went to live on the 

 border of the Corbin Game Preserve in New Hampshire, 

 which for many ^^^ears has been the home of one of the 

 largest herds of Buffalo in the world. The sight of these 

 splendid creatures made a deep impression on Mr. Baynes, 

 and excited his interest in the fate of their race, then in 

 great danger of becoming extinct. He sought to create 

 public interest in the matter by a series of articles printed 

 in the Boston "Transcript" that summer, and in August 

 was aroused to greater activity by a letter written by Hon. 

 William E. Chandler and addressed to Hon. James 

 Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. In this letter Mr. 

 Chandler called the attention of the United States Govern- 

 ment to the fact that, while the owners of the preserve 

 desired to carry out as far as possible the intention of the 

 founder, the late Austin Corbin, and preserve the 

 Buffaloes, the ever-increasing expense of maintaining so 

 large a herd (then numbering 160 head) ^vas already too 

 great to be borne by a private family. Mr. Chandler 

 intimated that unless the Government was sufficiently 

 interested in the matter to provide for or take other 

 "steps to preserve them permanently," it might be 

 necessary to dispose of them elsewhere. 



Early in the fall Mr. Baynes visited Prof. Franklin 

 W. Hooper, Director of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts 

 and Sciences, at his home in Walpole, N. H., and with 

 him discussed the possibility of arousing wide public 

 interest in the Buffalo. At Professor Hooper's suggestion, 

 letters were written to many prominent persons, including 

 President Roosevelt, urging them to interest themselves 

 in the fate of the vanishing Bison. President Roosevelt 

 took immediate and active interest in the subject, as is 

 evidenced by the following letter: — 



