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154 



THE AMEEICAISr BlSOi^S. 



and moat^ the herd is now mainly concentrated where it is temporarily less 

 exposed to persecution than on the more accessible plains of Kansas. The 

 range of the herd thus not only changes with the seasons of the year^ but 

 also from year to year, in consequence of attacks upon them at new localities. 

 Unless legal interference, either by the States of Kansas, Colorado, and Texas, 

 or by the general government, be speedily made, and rigorous restrictions 

 most thoroughly enforced, the fate of the buffalo south of the Platte will be a 

 repetition of its history east of the Mississippi Eiver, namely, speedy exter- 



mination. 



Herd. 



The region south of the Platte 



inhabited by the buffalo is already reduced to a very limited area. At the 

 northward their range extends over only the head-waters of the Eepublican, 

 and thence westward to the South Platte, to the northward of which river 

 they still sometimes appear, their range thus including the small portion of 

 Southwestern Nebraska that lies south of the Union Pacific Railway. They 

 rann-e thence southward throusrhout Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado, 

 the extreme western part of the Indian Territory, Northern and Western 

 Texas, extending in the latter State southward to the 30th parallel, and 

 from the 98th meridian westward over the northern portion of the Staked 

 Plains nearly to the eastern boundary of New Mexico. In 1873 they ranged 

 westward to within a hundred miles of Santa Fe.* 



Hefficm hetween the Platte Uiver and Parallel of 49°. — ^ Passing to the north- 

 ward of the Platte River, we will consider first the region situated between 

 the Platte River and the United States and British boundary, or the 49th 

 parallel. The buffalo, as is well known, formerly ranged over the whole 

 country drained by the Missouri and its tributaries, as well as over the plains 

 of the Red River of the North, and those of the Assinniboioe and the Sas- 

 katchewan. The plains of the Red River, in Northern Minnesota and 

 Dakota, formerly connected the great buffalo r-ange of the Upper Missouri 

 ref^-ion with that of the Saskatchewan, whilst the Grand Coteau des Prairies 

 was for a lono- time one of the regions of their greatest abundance. Begin- 

 ning with Eastern Dakota, or that portion of the Territory east of the Mis- 

 souri River, embracing the Grand Coteau des Prairies, we shall pass thence to 

 the region between the Missouri River and the 49th parallel, and, lastly, 

 trace their extermination over the vast triangular area bounded by the Mis- 

 souri and Platte Rivers and the Rocky Mountains. 



* 11. W. Henshaw, in a letter to the writer, dated March G, 1875. 



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