The Zoology of North American Big Game 



energies into the struggle for existence, with the re- 

 sult that extinction to nearly the same degree has 

 overtaken these two near cousins among oxen, A 

 few wild members of the European species still 

 exist in the Caucasus, as a few of the American are 

 left in British America^ but elsewhere both exist 

 only under protection. 



The carefully kept statistics of the Bielowitza 

 herd in Grodno, western Russia, which includes 

 nearly all but the few wild ones, shows that between 

 1833 and 1857 they increased in number from 

 768 to 1,898, but from this maximum the decrease 

 has been constant, with trifling halts, until in 1892 

 less than five hundred were left; so that even ii 

 the Peace River bison are counted with the rem- 

 nant of the American species, it is probable that 

 the survivors of each race are about equal in 

 number. 



It is true that the number of our own species has 

 lately been placed as high as a thousand, but even 

 if these figures are correct, the seeds of decay from 

 internal causes, such as inbreeding and the degen- 

 eration of restraint^ are already sown, and the in- 

 evitable end of the race is not far off. 



The Peace River, or woodland, bison has lately 

 been separated as a sub-species (B. bison atha- 

 h as etc) , distinguished from the southern and bet- 



65 



