H2 HUNTING TRIPS 



side by side over the prairie for a mile's 

 length. These old trails are frequently used 

 by the cattle herds at the present time, or 

 are even turned into pony paths by the 

 ranchmen. For many long years after the 

 buffalo die out from a place, their white 

 skulls and well-worn roads remain as melan- 

 choly monuments of their former existence. 

 The rapid and complete extermination of 

 the buffalo affords an excellent instance of 

 how a race, that has thriven and multiplied 

 for ages under conditions of life to which it 

 has slowly fitted itself by a process of nat- 

 ural selection continued for countless gen- 

 erations, may succumb at once when these 

 surrounding conditions are varied by the in- 

 troduction of one or more new elements, im- 

 mediately becoming the chief forces with 

 which it has to contend in the struggle for 

 life. The most striking characteristics of the 

 buffalo, and those which had been found 

 most useful in maintaining the species until 

 the white man entered upon the scene, were 

 its phenomenal gregariousness surpassed 



