American Big-Game Hunting 



about the whitening bones and scatter them 

 over the plain. So this cow and this bull of 

 mine may have left their bones on the prairie, 

 where I found them and picked them up to 

 keep as mementos of the past, to dream over, 

 and in such reverie to see as^ain the swellinor 

 hosts which yesterday covered the plains, and 

 to-day are but a dream. 



So the buffalo passed into history. Once 

 an inhabitant of this continent from the Arctic 

 slope to Mexico, and from Virginia to Oregon, 

 and, within the memory of men yet young, 

 roaming the plains in such numbers that it 

 seemed as if it could never be exterminated, 

 it has now disappeared as utterly as has the 

 bison from Europe. For it is probable that 

 the existing herds of that practically extinct 

 species, now carefully guarded in the forests 

 of Grodno, about equal in numbers the buffalo 

 in the Yellowstone Park ; while the wild bison 

 in the Caucasus may be compared with the 

 "wood" buffalo which survive in the Peace 

 River district. In view of the former abun- 

 dance of our buffalo, this parallel is curious 

 and interesting. 



The early explorers were constantly as- 

 158 



