372 Sport and Life. 



Yellowstone Park. There may be a few there now, but none have been 

 seen for a year or more, and they are supposed to have been killed off. 



Besides the Omaha herd there are a few others in captivity, some kept 

 for breeding purposes and others for exhibition. Mr. Charles Allard, in 

 the Flathead Indian reservation, Montana, has thirty-seven head. Buffalo 

 Bill's Wild West show numbers among its attractions a herd of thirteen 

 buffaloes, subject to so many dangers from disease and accident that very 

 little can be hoped from it in the way of perpetuating the species. 

 Mr. Charles Goodnight, of Clarendon, Tex., had nine head. In the 

 Philadelphia Zoological Gardens there are eight. In Lincoln Park, 

 Chicago, there are six head, and in half a dozen other places there are 

 held groups of two and three and several single animals. 



With the Jones herd an earnest and intelligent effort is being made 

 to save the species from utter extinction, and the fact that the animals 

 may be domesticated and made a source of profit has also been 

 demonstrated. 



Mr. Jones is perfectly well qualified for this task. He was in the 

 centre of distribution of the great southern herd from 1866 until their final 

 disappearance, and was by profession a buffalo hunter. When the great 

 slaughter began in 1871 he was employed by his neighbours to shoot 

 buffalo at 50 cents a head, and they would follow him and secure the 

 hides. His method was what is known as " still-hunting/' and he has 

 averaged from thirty to forty head a day. On one occasion he shot 

 seventy-two head without shifting his ground. He acknowledges that he 

 was frequently ashamed of his work, but with the whole country out 

 hunting he did not feel like missing his share. In 1873 he began to 

 realise that the wholesale slaughter was beginning to make inroads upon 

 what then appeared an inexhaustible supply of game, and made his first 

 efforts to preserve the species. On the Solomon river in Western Kansas 

 he captured seven calves, which he subsequently sold. He went on 

 expeditions to the fast receding haunts of the animals each year afterwards 

 until 1888, and the herd now at Omaha is a testimonial to his courage, 

 skill, and pluck in the chase. Every one of the adult animals was run 

 down, lassoed, and tied with his own hands. 



His last and greatest feat was in May, 1888. There \vas known to be 

 at that time a small herd in the uninhabited 'panhandle" of Texas which 

 could not long escape the rifle. With an elaborate "outfit" of men, 

 horses, and camp equipage, Mr. Jones started from Garden City, Kas., to 

 capture it. For forty-two days and nights the party followed the animals 

 across the staked plains until they had finally lassoed or rounded up the entire 

 herd. Only buffalo hunters can realise what such an achievement means. 



