The Lordly Buffalo. 2 43 



The extermination of the buffalo has been a veritable 

 tragedy of the animal world. Other races of animals have 

 been destroyed within historic times, but these have been 

 species of small size, local distribution, and limited num- 

 bers, usually found in some particular island or group of 

 islands ; while the huge buffalo, in countless myriads, 

 ranged over the greater part of a continent. Its nearest 

 relative, the Old World aurochs, formerly found all through 

 the forests of Europe, is almost as near the verge of 

 extinction, but with the latter the process has been slow, 

 and has extended over a period of a thousand years, 

 instead of being compressed into a dozen. The destruc- 

 tion of the various larger species of South African game is 

 much more local, and is proceeding at a much slower rate. 

 It may truthfully be said that the sudden and complete 

 extermination of the vast herds of the buffalo is without a 

 parallel in historic times. 



No sight is more common on the plains than that of a 

 bleached buffalo skull ; and their countless numbers attest 

 the abundance of the animal at a time not so very long 

 past. On those portions where the herds made their last 

 stand, the carcasses, dried in the clear, high air, or the 

 mouldering skeletons, abound. Last year, in crossing the 

 country around the heads of the Big Sandy, O'Fallon 

 Creek, Little Beaver, and Box Alder, these skeletons or 

 dried carcasses were in sight from every hillock, often 

 lying over the ground so thickly that several score could 

 be seen at once. A ranchman who at the same time had 

 made a journey of a thousand miles across Northern 

 Montana, along the Milk River, told me that, to use his 



