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 again the swelling 
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 
