i ^'i^ ^?N 



:,tunc View Co. 



ROAMING "mONARCIIS OF THE PLAIN : BRITISH COLUMBIA 



A remnant of the veritable sea of wild life that surged over American soil before the dikes 

 of civilization compassed it about and all but wiped it out 



Michig-an the prairies were filled with an 

 incredible number of bears, wapiti, white- 

 tailed deer, and turkeys, on which the 

 wolves made fierce war. He adds that on 

 a number of occasions this game was so 

 little wild that it was necessary to fire 

 shots to protect the party from it. Perrot 

 states that during the winter of 1670- 

 167 1, 2,400 moose were snared on the 

 Great Manitoitlin Island, at the head of 

 Lake Huron. Other travelers, even down 

 to the last century, give similar accounts 

 of the abundance of game. 



TRAINS HELD UP BY BUFFALO 



The original bufifalo herds have been 

 estimated to have contained from 30,000.- 

 000 to 60,000,000 animals, and in 1870 it 

 was estimated that about 5,500,000 still 

 survived. A number of men now living 

 were privileged to see some of the great 

 herds of the West before they were finally 

 destroyed. Dr. George Bird Grinnell 

 writes : 



"In 1870, I happened to be on a train 

 that was stopped for three hours to let 

 a herd of buffalo pass. We supposed 

 they would soon pass by, but they kept 



coming. On a number of occasions in 

 earlier days the engineers thought that 

 they could run through the herds, and 

 that, seeing the locomotive, the buffalo 

 would stop or turn aside ; but after a few 

 locomotives had been ditched by the ani- 

 mals the engineers got in the way of re- 

 specting the bufi'aloes' idiosyncrasies. . . . 



"Up to within a few years, in northern 

 Montana and southern Alberta, old buf- 

 falo trails have been very readily trace- 

 able by the eye, even as one passed on a 

 railroad train. These trails, fertilized by 

 the buffalo and deeply cut so as to long 

 hold moisture, may still be seen in sum- 

 mer as green lines winding- up and down 

 the hills to and from the water-courses." 



Concerning the former abundance of 

 antelope, Dr. Grinnell says : "For many 

 years I have held the opinion that in early 

 days on the plains, as I saw them, ante- 

 lope were much more abundant than buf- 

 falo. Buffalo, of course, being big and 

 black, were impressive if seen in masses 

 and were visible a long way off. Ante- 

 lope, smaller and less conspicuous in 

 color, were often passed unnoticed, ex- 

 cept by a person of experience, who 



389 



