xviii MAMMALS OF AMERICA 



a species received absolute protection throughout its range in the United States. The 

 first close terms were apparently those for deer for three years in Massachusetts, 1718, and 

 four years in Virginia, 1772. Comparatively few close terms for quail have been established 

 in States well within the range of the species, although such periods are common in localities 

 where birds have been introduced, or reach the border of their natural range, and where they 

 are likely to be winter killed. In the case of doves the species was first removed from the 

 game list in Connecticut and New Jersey in 1850, and this bird has since been given com- 

 plete protection in about a third of the Northern States, although in the South and Southwest 

 it is still retained on the game list. 



By the establishment of a close term on caribou in Minnesota in 1905, the last State 

 which had any of this game was closed to hunting, and caribou were practically removed 

 from the game list in the United States. Close terms for antelope have likewise been 

 extended and adopted by successive States until in 1909 they covered the entire range of 

 the species, thus practically removing antelope from the game list. 



The completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1868 determined the fate of the buffalo. 

 The species at that time was distributed chiefly on the Great Plains region between the 

 Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, although a few individuals may have ranged 

 west of the mountains. The only State which afforded the species any protection was 

 Idaho. The building of the railroad not only divided the buffalo into two great herds, 

 a northern and a southern, but gave ready access to the hunting grounds and afforded easy 

 means of shipment for hides. For a time the slaughter raged almost uninterruptedly, and 

 in six. years the southern herd was almost exterminated. With the completion of the Northern 

 Pacific Railroad in 1881 the fate of the northern herd was sealed; the last survivors were 

 destro^'ed seven years later. 



It is interesting to note that a close season on buffalo was first established in Idaho in 

 1864, and in Wyoming in 1871, followed by Montana in 1872, Nebraska 1875, Colorado 1877, 

 New Mexico 1880, and North and South Dakota 1883. With the building of the Kansas 

 Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka and SantaFe railroads in the early seventies, an important 

 trade in buffalo hides and meat arose at several points in southern Kansas, notably at Dodge 

 City, Leavenworth, and Wichita. From these centers persistent and concerted attacks were 

 made on the southern herd, and so long as buffalo killing remained profitable it was impossible 

 to secure any legislation which w-ould interfere with the traffic. With the disappearance 

 of the southern herd about 1874 the need for a close season vanished. Briefly stated, not 

 the slightest protection was afforded in the way of legislation in the States in which buffalo 

 were most abundant and in which, through its accessibility, the species was most quickly 

 exterminated. 



The enormous. flocks of wild pigeons which formerly darkened the skies in the States 

 of the upper Mississippi Valley, New York, and southern New England had already begun 

 to decrease by the middle of the last centur\-. The last great nesting in New York occurred 

 in 1868, the last large roosting in 1875, and the last great nesting in Michigan — probably 

 the last anywhere on the continent — in 1878. During the time of abundance no serious 

 effort was made to protect the birds. The first legislation on wild pigeons seems to have 

 been an act passed in Massachusetts in 1848, which, instead of protecting the birds, pro- 

 tected the netters against molestation in carr>-ing on their business. In 1857 a committee 

 of the State Legislature of Ohio in their report on a game bill declared: " The passenger 

 pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North 

 as its breeding grounds, travelling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here to-day and 

 elsewhere tomorrow, and no ordinary- destruction can lessen them or be missed from the 

 myriads that are yearly produced." 



The last wild pigeon in Ohio was killed in 1900, and a few years later the sole survivor 

 of the species known, a captive bird, died in the gardens of the Zoological Society of Cincinnati, 

 Sept. I, 1914. 



