248 The Wilderness Httnter. 



have seen, I think they are really the same animal, many 

 individuals of the two so-called varieties being quite 

 indistinguishable. In fact the only moderate-sized herd 

 of wild bison in existence to-day, the protected herd in the 

 Yellowstone Park, is composed of animals intermediate in 

 habits and coat between the mountain and plains varieties 

 — as were all the herds of the Bighorn, Big Hole, Upper 

 Madison, and Upper Yellowstone valleys. 



However, the habitat of these wood and mountain 

 bison yielded them shelter from hunters in a way that the 

 plains never could, and hence they have always been 

 harder to kill in the one place than in the other ; for 

 precisely the same reasons that have held good with the 

 elk, which have been completely exterminated from the 

 plains, while still abundant in many of the forest fastnesses 

 of the Rockies. Moreover, the bison's dull eyesight is 

 no especial harm in the woods, while it is peculiarly hurtful 

 to the safety of any beast on the plains, where eyesight 

 avails more than any other sense, the true game of the 

 plains being the prong-buck, the most keen-sighted of 

 American animals. On the other hand the bison's hearing, 

 of little avail on the plains, is of much assistance in the 

 woods ; and its excellent nose helps equally in both places. 



Though it was always more difficult to kill the bison 

 of the forests and mountains than the bison of the prairie, 

 yet now that the species is, in its wild state, hovering on 

 the brink of extinction, the difficulty is immeasurably 

 increased. A merciless and terrible process of natural 

 selection, in which the agents were rifle-bearing hunters, 

 has left as the last survivors in a hopeless struggle for 



