88 OEIGIN AND TRANSFER OF DOMESTIC QUADRUPEDS. 



Accordino; to the census of tlie United States for 1870 * tlie to- 

 tal number of horses in all the States of the American Union, 

 was, in round numbers, Y,100,000 ; of asses and mules, 1,100,- 

 000 ; of the ox tribe, 25,000,000 ; of sheep, 28,000,000 ; and of 

 swine, 25,000,000. The only indigenous North American quad- 

 ruped sufficiently gregarious in habits, and sufficiently multiphed 

 in numbers, to form really large herds, is the bison, or, as he ia 

 commonly called in America, the buffalo ; and this animal is con- 

 fined to the prairie region of the Mississippi basin, a small part of 

 British America, and ISTorthern Mexico. The engineers sent out 

 to survey railroad routes to the Pacific estimated the number of a 

 single herd of bisons seen within the last fifteen years on the great 

 plains near the Upper Missouri, at not less than 200,000, and yet 

 the range occupied by this animal is now very much smaller m 

 area than it was when the whites first estabhshed themselves on 

 the prairies.f But it must be remarked that the American buf- 

 falo is a migratory animal, and that, at the season of his annual 

 journeys, the whole stock of a vast extent of pasture-ground is 

 collected into a single army, which is seen at or very near any 



* In the enumeration of farm stock, " sucking pigs, spring lambs, and calves," 

 are omitted. I believe they are included in the numbers reported by the cen- 

 sus of 1860. Horses and horned cattle in towns and cities were excluded from 

 both enumerations, the law providing for returns on these points from rural 

 districts only. On the whole, there is a diminution in the number of all farm 

 stock, except sheep, since 1860. This is ascribed by the Report to the destruc- 

 tion of domestic quadrupeds during the civil war, but this hardly explains 

 the reduction m the number of swine from 39,000,000 in 1860 to 25,000,000 in 

 1870. 



The census of 1880 shows the total number of horses in the United States 

 (exclusive of those owned by persons not cultivating farms, whether in cities 

 or villages, or elsewhere) to be considerably over 10,000,000; that of asses and 

 mules 1,800,000 ; of the ox tribe, 35,000,000 ; of sheep, 35,000,000 ; of swine, 

 nearly 48,000,000. 



f " About five miles from camp we ascended to the top of a high hill, and 

 for a great distance ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of buffalo 

 upon it. Their number was variously estimated by the members of the party ; 

 by some as high as half a million. I do not think it any exaggeration to set it 

 down at 200, 000. " — Stevens's Narrative and Final Report. Reports of Explora- 

 idons and Surveys for Railroad to Pacific, vol. xii., book i., 1860. 



The next day the party fell in with a " buffalo trail," where at least 100,000 

 were thought to have crossed a slough. 



As late as 1868, Sheridan's party estimated the number of bisons seen by 

 them in a single day at 200,000. — Sheridan's Troopers on the Border, 1868, p. 41 



