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182 



THE AMERICAN BISOls^S 



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annual hunts than they could possiMy use, or from which they saved merely 

 the tongues. The wolves were formerly also a great check upon the increase 

 of the buffalo, but the hunters by means of poison have reduced their num- 

 ber much more rapidly than even that of the buffalo, so that the influence of 

 the wolves in hastening the extirpation of the buffalo is now but slight. 

 The Indians, too, have vanished before the w^estward advance of the wdiite 

 man more rapidly even than the buffalo, so that the destruction of the buf- 

 falo by the Indians is now relatively far less than formerly. Hence the 

 opinion, as stated in the preceding pages, has been advanced, and to some 

 extent publicly advocated, that the present rate of the decrease of the buf- 

 falo is actually less than formerly, notwithstanding the vast numbers annu- 

 ally killed by white hunters, in consequence of the greatly reduced numbers 

 of the wolves and the Indians. A slight glance at the history of the decline 

 of the buffalo, however, is sufficient to at once indicate the fallacy of such an 

 opinion; and none are better aware of this than the most active partici- 



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pators in their destruction,-— the professional buffalo-hunters themselves,— 



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many of whom are candid enough to admit that, through the almost xitter 

 extermination of the buffalo, their present occupation will soon pass away, 

 unless the general or local governments enforce the most peremptory restric- 



tions upon their slaughter. 



The Indians, prior to the discovery of the continent by Europeans, appear 

 not to have seriously affected the number of buff^does, their natural increase 

 equalling the^ number destroyed both by the Indians and the wolves. When 

 the Jesuit missionaries penetrated the range of the buffalo east of the Missis- 

 sippi, in the seventeenth century, they found this animal the main subsist- 

 ence of the Indian tribes, as it doubtless had been for centuries, its flesh serv- 

 ino- them for food, its skins for shields, clothing, and tents, and its hair, wool, 

 horns hoofs, and bones for various articles of ornament and use. No sooner, 

 however, had Europeans made settlements within its range, than the buffa- 



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loes began to disappear, and were either wholly destroyed or driven from 

 their favorite haunts in the short space of a very few years. The destruc- 

 tion increased with the increase of the white population till they were totally 

 exterminated east of the Mississippi (at least, south of the present State of 

 Minnesota), as already shown, prior to the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. Even as late as fifty years ago they occupied a considerable area west 

 of the Rocky Mountains, alh the extensive parks and valleys within these 

 mountains, and all the vast plains and prairies between them and the Missis- 





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