154 



THE OX AND THE BISON 



Fig. 132. — Ayrshire Cow. 



(Fig. 132). All are mere varieties of the same form, 

 like the wild cattle, some of which are still preserved in 



the Chillingham Park, 

 "iD England. 



Of this group the 

 American bison is 

 perhaps the most in- 

 teresting, as an exam- 

 ple of the swift and 

 almost complete ex- 

 termination of a very 

 proHfic race. As late as 1870 the Western plains in places 

 were covered with countless bisons (Fig. 133), a huge, 

 humped, griz- 

 zly giant that 

 roamed the 

 country in vast 

 herds and con- 

 stituted the 

 food and rai- 

 ment of a ma- 

 jority of the 

 American In- 

 dians. To-day 



Fig. 133, — The Bison. 



hardly two hundred pure-blooded bisons can be found in all 

 America. These are in private parks, the owners holding 

 them at extraordinary prices, and striving by every means 

 to save the race from extinction. No more remarkable 

 spectacle of the reckless killing of animals is known ; men 

 were hired to shoot them for their tongues and the skin, 

 and tens of thousands fell. Fifty years ago these herds 



