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THE AMERICAN BISONS. 181 
ized man has met with the larger mammalia in abundance, as has often hap- 
pened in the experience of explorers and pioneer settlers of newly discov- 
ered countries, the temptation to slaughter for the mere sake of killing 
seems rarely to be resisted. In the case of the carnivorous species an 
exterminating persecution is often pardonable, and to some extent neces- 
sary. The fur-bearing species, even when hunted to excess, are seldom 
destroyed wantonly, though often imprudently, the trapper blindly consider- 
ing only his immediate profits. In the case of the harmless herbivorous 
species, the ungulates especially, selfinterest, it would seem, would prompt 
an economical treatment of the game in newly settled districts. But the 
history of America shows that no such principle has here been regarded, 
where other animals than the buffalo—as the elk, moose, deer, prong-horn, 
and mountain sheep — have been slaughtered with the utmost recklessness. 
When stress of weather, for instance, or other circumstances, have brought 
these animals within the hunter’s power, scores and even hundreds have 
often been killed by single parties already so well supplied with the products 
of the chase that they had no need for and could make no use of the animals 
thus destroyed. The buffaloes, from their great numbers and the little tact 
required in their capture, have probably been the victims of indiscriminate, 
improvident, and wanton slaughter to a greater extent than any other North 
American animal. As already stated, thousands are still killed annually 
merely for so-called “sport,” no use whatever being made of them; thou- 
sands of others of which only the tongue or other slight morsel is saved ; 
hundreds of thousands of others for their hides, which yield the hunter but 
little more than enough to pay him for the trouble of taking and selling 
them; while many more, though escaping from their would-be captors, die 
of their wounds and yield no return whatever to their murderers.* Of the 
hundreds of thousands that for the last few years have been annually killed, 
probably less than a fourth have been to any great extent utilized. While 
this wanton and careless waste has ever characterized the contact of the 
white race with the sluggish and inoffensive bison of our plains and prairies, 
the Indians have likewise been improvident in their slaughter of this 
animal, often killing hundreds or even thousands more during their grand 
* Professional buffalo-hunters of the Kansas plains repeatedly assured me that they believe that an 
average of not more than one in three of the buffaloes killed by them were secured and made use of. 
From extended observations, however, I felt convinced that this was quite too high an estimate of the pro- 
portion unrecovered of those killed. Yet the waste is actually enormous, even in the contingencies of 
hunting for legitimate purposes, namely, for frontier consumption and shipment to Eastern markets. 
