THE CORBIN BUFFALO HERD 



-^HERE is just one spot in all New England — I might 

 Vlb say in all the United States east of the Mississippi 

 River — where we can see a herd of pure-blood buffalo, 

 practically at large; that is in the great Blue Mountain 

 Forest Game Preserve, near Newport, Sullivan County, 

 N. H. A wonderful place is this — 25,000 acres of glorious 

 mountain and valley and plain, in the very heart of the 

 "Coniston" country, familiar to every reader of Church- 

 hill's fascinating novel. 



The idea of buying up Croydon Mountain and the 

 three hundred farms which it brooded as a partridge 

 broods her chicks, of fencing it with a nine-foot wire 

 fence, and of stocking it with healthy, pure-bred speci- 

 mens of the disappearing North American big game, 

 was a bold conception even for the late Austin Corbin, 

 a man world-famous for his bold conceptions. And he 

 not only conceived the idea, he carried it out to the 

 last detail, and more than twenty years ago established 

 a game preserve the like of which cannot be found any- 

 where else in the country even to-day. 



Interesting as the subject is, there is no space in 

 this report for even a brief description of ''Corbin Park," 

 as the great preserve is called by the people who hve 

 along its borders; the writer must confine himself to a 

 very short account of the famous buffalo herd which 

 constitutes, for the members of The American Bison So- 

 ciety at least, its chief attraction. 



It was on a bright morning in 1890, that the farmers 

 working in the fields near the road between Newport 

 and Croydon Flat, stopped their oxen for a minute to 

 gaze in wonder at a passing herd of the strangest ''cattle" 

 they had ever seen. Great brown beasts they were, with 

 burly, horned and bearded heads, short, powerful necks, 

 high, rounded humps, and short tails, ending in a tuft 

 of hair. These creatures were pictures of prodigious 

 strength. From their mighty forelimbs hung banners 



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