NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 15 



Warning. Visitors must never stand close beside a wire 

 fence, because its elasticity between posts might enable a 

 charging animal to strike a person so standing and inflict 

 a serious injury, even though the fence is not in the least 

 affected by the blow. 



THE BUFFALO RANGES, Nos. 51 and 52. 



Stretching from the Boston Road to the large Antelope 

 House (No. 50), and from the Rocking Stone to the southern 

 boundary, lies an open expanse of rolling meadow land, with 

 a total area of about twenty acres. It is almost surrounded 

 by shade-trees. Its easterly edge is a low-lying strip of rich 

 meadow, which lies under the shelter of the rocky, tree- 

 covered ridge that forms the natural retaining wall of the 

 higher plateau toward the west. This is the Buffalo Range. 

 It is the first enclosure seen on the left as the visitor enters 

 the Park from West Farms by way of the Boston Road. 



On the north side of the main range, near the Rocking 

 Stone (No. 45), are the four corrals, and the Buffalo House. 

 The latter is a rustic hillside barn, eighty feet in length, 

 with a semicircular front, affording shelter and feed stor- 

 age for twenty-five buffaloes. The flat roof of the Buffalo 

 House is open to the public from the main walk, and has 

 been specially designed as a convenient lookout over the 

 main range and corrals. There are other corrals, and a 

 shelter shed, at the "Buffalo Entrance." 



The American Bison, or Buffalo, (B. americanus), is the 

 largest and the best known of all North American hoofed 

 animals. What was once the universal herd, which occu- 

 pied the whole pasture region of the West, was cut in twain 

 in 1867, by the building of the first trans-continental rail- 

 way. The great "southern herd," of several millions of 

 animals, was destroyed by skin hunters during the years 

 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874, and the practical extinction of 

 the northern herd was accomplished between 1880 and 

 3884. 



At present there are but two herds of wild buffaloes in 

 existence. The largest band, now containing by estimate 

 about 300 individuals, inhabits a wide stretch of barren 

 and inhospitable territory southwest of Great Slave Lake. 

 About twenty head remain in the Yellowstone Park, more 



