VII 



HEREDITY, VARIATION 



115 



should under natural conditions have occupied so large an 

 area in such vast multitudes, is a sure proof that it had 

 become so perfectly adapted to its whole environment as to 

 effectually protect itself against the numerous enemies that 

 inhabited the same area. Those powerful members of the 

 cat tribe, the jaguar and the puma, would have been quite 

 able to destroy the bison had it not been protected by its 

 social instinct and high intelligence. The wolves which 

 hunt in packs, and are equally powerful and ferocious with 

 those of Europe, must also have been most dangerous enemies ; 



Fig. ii. — The American Bison (Bos Americamis). 



but the bisons always associated in numerous herds, and were 

 so well guarded by the old males, that they appear to have 

 suffered little from these animals. The immense shaggy 

 covering to the head, neck, and breast of the male buffaloes, 

 together with their short, powerful horns, were an almost 

 perfect protection ; and we must consider these animals to 

 have constituted one of the highest developments of the 

 great tribe of herbivorous quadrupeds. 



The extension of railways over the whole country about 

 the middle of the century, and the fact that, as the herds 

 diminished buffalo skins became more valuable, led to its 

 rapid extermination ; and at the present time only a small 

 and dwindling herd exists in the Yellowstone Park, and 

 another in north-western Canada. 



