784 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



quarters of the southern herd were somewhere near Garden City, Kansas. Al- 

 though the area occupied by this herd was greatly inferior in size to that of 

 the northern herd, yet the number of bison on it was vastly greater, being 

 estimated in 1871 as at least three, and probably nearly four, millions. That 

 year saw the completion of the Kansas branch of the Union Pacific, and the 

 great slaughter which thereupon commenced attained its height in 1873. At 

 the latter date the destruction of these animals was so wasteful and so wanton 

 that it is believed every hide which came into the market represented four ani- 

 mals killed. The destruction was of course greatest along the lines of rail- 

 ways, and on one of the three penetrating the southern bison country, nearly 

 a quarter of a million skins, more than a million and a half pounds of meat, and 

 fully two and a quarter millions of pounds of bones, were carried during the year in 

 question. At this time the whole country was poisoned with the effluvia from the 

 decaying carcasses; and it was a common practice to drive away the animals when 

 they came to drink till they became so maddened with thirst that they would come 

 within easy shooting distance. Mr. Hornaday states that it is probably a safe esti- 

 mate to say that not ' ' fewer than fifty thousand bison have been killed for their 

 tongues alone, and the most of these are undoubtedly chargeable against white men, 

 who ought to have known better." Over three and a half million animals are 

 estimated to have been slaughtered in the southern herd between 1872 and 1874. 

 In the latter year the hunters became alarmed at the great diminution in the num- 

 ber of the bison, and by the end of 1875 the great southern herd had ceased to exist 

 as a body. The main body of the survivors, some ten thousand strong, fled into 

 the wilder parts of Texas, where they had been gradually shot down, till a few years 

 ago some two or three score remained as the sole survivors of the three or four mil- 

 lions of the great southern herd; and in the year 1880 bison shooting was finally 

 abandoned, as being no longer a profitable trade. 



With regard to the northern herd, of which the number in 1870 was approxi- 

 mately estimated at a million and a half, distributed over a very wide tract of 

 country, it appears that the portion living in British North America was the first to 

 be exterminated. Before the year 1880 the numbers of the herd had been greatly 

 reduced in Dakota and Wyoming by the Sioux Indians; but the commence- 

 ment of the final destruction was heralded by the opening in that year of the 

 Northern Pacific Railway, which traversed the heart of the bison country. The 

 herd was, indeed, hemmed in on three sides by Sioux armed with breech-loading 

 rifles; and the price of robes having risen greatly in 1881, a rush from all sides was 

 made on the devoted herd, and in the hunting season, commencing in October, 

 1882, and terminating in the following February, the annihilation of the great 

 northern herd was practically completed; only some straggling bands, numbering a 

 few thousands, surviving. This event appears to have come like a thunder-clap on 

 the hunters, who actually fitted out expeditions in the autumn of 1884, only to find 

 that their quarry had disappeared forever. Mr. Hornaday states that to the south 

 of the Northern Pacific Railway, a band of about three hundred settled permanently 

 in and around the Yellowstone National Park, but in a very short time every ani- 

 mal outside of the protected limits of the park was killed; and whenever any of the 



