No. 1070, Vol. 42 J 



NATURE 



II 



THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN 

 BISON} 



IN the whole course of the histoiy of man's relations 

 with the lower animr.ls, no sadder chapter will ever 

 be written than that which tells of the practical extinc- 

 tion of the bison, which, only a short twenty years 

 since, wandered in countless thousands over the vast 

 prairies of the northern half of the American con- 

 tinent. This mournful story— mournful alike to the 

 naturalist, to the sportsman, and to the trader — the 

 author of this memoir recounts in such a full and lucid 

 manner as to have practically exhausted the subject. 

 Indeed, this memoir, in conjunction wiih Mr. 

 J. A. Allen's monograph of the recent and extinct 

 American bisons, does all that can be done in 

 the way of literature to atone for the loss of the 

 animal itself as a feature of the North American 

 ontinent. 



The memoir before us — which, we should say, 

 is issued as a separate volume — is divided into 

 three parts. The first of these deals with the 

 life-history of the bison, the second with its ex- 

 termination, while the third gives the history of 

 the Expedition despatched by the Smithsonian 

 Institution, in 1886, to procure specimens for the 

 National Museum before it became too late. Of 

 this Expedition the author was a prominent 

 member, and the results of his labours are now 

 exhibited in the magnificent case of stuffed 

 specimens set up by his own hands in the Na- 

 tional Museum at Washington. An excellent 

 illustration of this group is given in the frontis- 

 piece to the volume. 



After briefly alluding to the earliest records of 

 a knowledge of the existence of the American 

 bison by Europeans, Mr. Hornaday proceeds to 

 notice its geographical distribution. In illustra- 

 tion of this important part of the subject a map 

 is given, showing not only the original distribu- 

 tional area, but also the division by the Union 

 Pacific Railway into the great northern and 

 southern herds, and the gradual contraction and 

 isolation of their areas, finally ending in the few 

 spots where scattered individuals still linger on. 

 For the benefit of our readers we give a reduced 

 reproduction of that portion of this map com- 

 prising the bison area. Our author states that 

 the bison originally ranged over about one-third 

 of the entire North American continent. Thus, 

 " Starting almost at tide-water on the Atlantic 

 coast, it extended westward through a vast tract 

 of dense forest, across the Alleghany Mountain 

 system to the prairies along the Mississippi, and 

 southward to the delta of that great system. 

 Although the great plain country of the West 

 was the natural home of the species, where it 

 flourished most abundantly, it also wandered 

 south across Texas to the burning plains of 

 North-Eastern Mexico, westward across the 

 Rocky Mountains into New Mexico, Utah, and 

 Idaho, and northward across a vast treeless waste to 

 the bleak and inhospitable shores of the Great Slave 

 Lake itself" 



About a century and a half ago, when the greater part 

 of North America was still an unknown region to the 

 white races, it would appear that the bison had about 

 attained its maximum development ; and the author 

 suggests that if it had been left undisturbed it would 

 probably have crossed the Sierra Nevada and the Coast 

 Range to reach the fertile plains of the Pacific slope. This 



' "The Extominaticn of the American BUon." By W. T. Hornday. 

 From the Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1886-87. I'P- 369-548, 

 Pis. i.-xxii. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889.) 



enormous range would also in course of time have 

 probably given rise to local races, of which there is an 

 actual example in the so-called " wood-" or " mountain- 

 buffalo '' ; and in the opinion of the author it is probable, 

 if things had been left to themselves, that, while the 

 bisons in the neighbourhood of the Great Slave Lake 

 would have developed an extra amount of hair, and thus 

 tended to resemble the musk-ox of the Arctic regions, 

 those in the warm regions of the south would tend to lose 

 their hair, and attain a condition resembling that of the 

 Cape buffalo and the Indian gaur. The appearance of 

 the white man on the scene soon, however, put a stop to 

 Nature's processes. 



j^lS^V'v^^ 



Boundary of the area once inhabited by the bison. 



Approximate boundary between the area of desultory extirpation (a) and 

 that of systematic destruction .for robes and hides (b). 



'■" Range of the two great herds in 1870. 



Range of the herds in 1880. 



f Range of the scattered survivors of the southern herd in 1875, after the 

 \ great slaughter of 1870-73. 



Range of the northern herd in 1S84, after the great slaughter of 1880-83. 



The third section of the first part is devoted to the 

 consideration of the former numerical abundance of the 

 bison. Here the author considers that the current 

 accounts of the extraordinary number of these animals 

 are not in the least exaggerated. Thus he observes that 

 " it would have been as easy to count or to estimate the 

 number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number 

 of buffaloes [the author frequently employs this American 

 misnomer for the bison] living at any given time during 

 the history of the species previous to 1870. Even in 

 South Central Africa, which has been exceedingly prolific 

 in great herds of game, it is probable that all its quadru- 

 peds taken together on an equal area would never have 



