i8o TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



Washington under the auspices of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



In consequence of the settlement of the countrj^ by 

 Europeans the area inhabited by the bison was gra- 

 dually contracted until, about 1840, one mighty herd 

 occupied the centre of its former range. The completion 

 of the Union Pacific Railway in 1869 divided this great 

 herd into a soutliern and northern division, the former 

 comprising a number of individuals estimated at nearly 

 four millions, while the other contained about a million 

 and a half. Before 1880 the southern herd had practi- 

 cally ceased to exist, while the same fate threatened the 

 northern one in 1883, till in 1889 the species became 

 reduced to the numbers before given for that year. 



But to know all about the form and structure, the 

 habits and distribution of this animal, wdll go a very 

 little way towards enabling us to answer a very impor- 

 tant question, with asking which we might very well 

 have begun this article — the question, " What is the 

 animal which Americans know^ as the buffalo ? " To 

 answer this we must learn something of its relations to 

 all other animals, beginning, of course, with those which 

 are most like it and may be supposed to be very closely 

 akin to it. An extinct bison from the pleistocene rocks of 

 Texas, has been distinguished as the " broad-fronted 

 bison." There is, however, one species still living — the 

 auroch. It is not only confined to the Old World, but 

 is now nowhere to be met with except in the primeval 

 forests of Lithuania, Moldavia, Wallachia, and the Cau- 

 casus, where it is artificially preserved. Formerly it 

 doubtless ranged over a large portion of Europe. It is 

 very like the American kind, but is slightly larger, with 

 more poweiful hind-quarters ; the fore part of the body, 

 however, is not so massive, nor is the mane so luxuriant. 



