202 THE AMERICAN BISON 



has been reduced to very few in number. The debili- 

 tating effect of inbreeding may be seen in the white 

 cattle of Cadzow Forest, and, in a slighter degree, in 

 those of Chillingham Park. Pawnee Bill has come to 

 the dispiriting conclusion that it is vain to attempt 

 restoring the pure breed of bisons. His only hope lies 

 in mating them with the best individuals of the nearest 

 domesticated strain, and after experimenting on fifty- 

 three pure-bred bison cows in his own herd, he 

 pronounces the best strain to be the polled black 

 Galloway. This variety much resembles the polled 

 Angus, but is rougher in the coat and bigger in bone. 

 In crossing bisons with Galloways, the wild race proves 

 to be the dominant strain, the offspring having the 

 small, wiry flanks of the bison, with its heavy fore-hand 

 and neck, and producing a long, silky, glossy coat, 

 slightly darker than a genuine buffalo robe. 



So far, so good ; for the cross has proved fertile ; but 

 there remains an essential which cannot be so easily 

 supplied. Pawnee Bill declares that buffaloes will not 

 thrive without the true ' buffalo grass ' which covers the 

 great prairies upon which they once roamed, especially 

 the Great Staked Plain. To the want of this grass he 

 attributes the dwindling of the herd preserved in 

 Yellowstone Park, reduced in 1906 to twenty-nine 

 animals. Now whereas no ordinary farmer can afford 

 to acquire and preserve a tract of this peculiar pasture, 

 Pawnee Bill invokes the intervention of the United 

 States Government to buy up a breadth of the Great 

 Staked Plain, where land is to be had at a nominal 

 figure, and thereon to perpetuate the native bison. He 



