THE AMERICAN BISONS. 17 
they have been not merely driven ow and pressed on to some more secure 
retreat, but actually eaterminated, the vast majority being killed on the spot, as 
we have seen was the case east of the Mississippi during the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century. 
This shows with the utmost ee what is to ise the destiny of this 
former “monarch of the prairies,” unless rigidly protected by legal restric- 
tions, defining not only the seasons at which the animals may be killed, but 
also protecting the young and the bearing females. At the present time, as 
well as heretofore, those animals are most sought after om which the perpetu- 
ation of the race depends, — the young animals of both sexes and the cows. 
The older bulls are alike generally useless both to the Indian and the white 
hunter. The skins of cows are alone used by the Indians in furnishing 
themselves with robes; the young and middle-aged cows are regarded- 
as especially desirable by the white hunters, since they afford the best 
meat for the market, although along with them are killed yearlings, and 
two- and three-year-olds of both sexes; but bulls older than five or six 
years are not generally desired, though many have of late years been 
killed merely for their hides. The hunting season being chiefly in the fall 
and winter, the cows are then with young, and thus two animals are killed 
in securing one. 
— Recent Destruction of the Buffalo,in Kansas.—Some idea of the havoc re- 
cently made with the buffalo-in Kansas can be formed from the following 
well-attested statements. At the time of the completion of the Atchison, To- 
peka, and Santa Fé Railroad to Dodge City, which occurred September 23, 
1872, the principal trade of the town consisted in the “outfitting of hunters, 
and exchange for their game.” The number of hides shipped during a 
period of three months, beginning with this date (Sept. 23), is reported to 
have been 43,029, and the shipment of meat for the same time 1,436,290 
pounds.* The forty-three thousand hides of course represent forty-three thou- 
sand dead buffaloes, and the one million and a half pounds of meat — the 
saddles only being saved — represent at least six or seven thousand more, 
making a total of at least fifty thousand killed in three months. The same 
authority states that the returns for the January following exceeded those 
of the preceding months by over one hundred and jifty per cent, thus making 
the number of buffaloes killed merely “around Fort Dodge and the neigh- 
borhood,” for this period of four months, exceed one hundred thousand! 
* Forest and Stream, February, 1873. 
