THE AMERICAN BISON 



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It appears that although the bison had for more than a century been subject to 

 a merciless persecution, both by Indians and Whites, yet up to the year 1830, 

 beyond a certain restriction in its area of distribution this desultory warfare had not 

 made any very serious inroads on the numbers of the animals; and that as late as 

 1870 there were certainly several million head still living. During the period from 

 1730 to 1830 the desultory warfare had, however, completely driven away the bison 

 from the eastern portion of the United States, and also from the districts to the 



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HEAD OF AMERICAN BISON. 



westward of the Rocky mountains, where they were never very numerous. With 

 the year 1830, Mr. Hornaday considers, began the era of the systematic slaughter 

 of the bison for the sake of its flesh and hides; and the ever-increasing demand for 

 "buffalo robes," as the dressed skins are termed, soon began to tell on its numbers. 

 Up to the year 1869 the bison occupied one large and continuous area; but the com- 

 pletion in that year of the Union Pacific Railway cut this area in twain, and at the 

 same time divided the great herd into a northern and southern moiety. The head- 



