144 ECONOMIC MAMMALOGY 



a large part of what is now the United States and British America. It 

 was inevitable that the settlement of a large part of their range by 

 agriculturists and stock-growers would deplete the herds and restrict 

 their range. Their gregarious habits made them peculiarly susceptible 

 to attack. Slowly they were exterminated all over the eastern part 

 of their range. When the westward march of white men reached the 

 Great Plains extending from British America to Texas and from the 

 Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains, they found the bison roaming 

 in vast hordes. The total number has been variously estimated, even 

 as high as 30,000,000 to 60,000,000, which latter figure is probably 

 extravagant, but the numbers must have run well up into millions. 



For many centuries these herds had been the chief dependence of the 

 Plains Indians for meat, the skins furnishing raiment and shelter. With 

 the advent of white hunters, trappers and pioneer settlers, the caravans 

 of immigrants and government exploring and surveying expeditions, 

 they also found the bison an abundant source of food. The workmen 

 engaged in the construction of railroads over the plains were fed 

 largely on buffalo meat while in the neighborhood of the herds. The 

 coming of the railroads made available the eastern markets and the 

 slaughter of these noble animals began. Theretofore it had been difficult 

 to get the bulky skins to the market and in the absence of refrigera- 

 tion the meat could not be marketed at all, except locally. Within a 

 few years after opening the railroads the vast herds had ceased to 

 exist, and this species, once so abundant over so large a territory, was 

 reduced to a mere remnant, divided into a few small, widely scattered 

 herds. "The buffalo hunters paved the prairies of Texas and Colorado 

 with festering carcasses" (Hornaday). This sudden and appalling de- 

 struction and the unpardonable waste that attended it are a lasting 

 disgrace to civilization, but such has ever been the history of the con- 

 tact of advancing civilization with wild animals, especially with the 

 larger species. It was estimated that in 1870 there were still 5,500,000 

 of them left, but in 1885 one could travel almost all over the former 

 range of the species in the United States and never see one. 7 



It is said that 50,000 were killed for their tongues alone, the meat 



7 See Nelson, Nat. Geog. Mag. xxx, 389, 1916. Allen, History of the American 

 bison, <?th Ann. Kept. Hayden's U. S. Geol. Surv. Terr, (for 1875), pp. 443-547, (re- 

 printed from Mem. Kentucky Geol. Surv. and Mem. Museum Comp. Zool. at Har- 

 vard College). Hornaday, The extermination of the American bison, Ann. Kept. 

 U. S. Natl. Mus. for 1887, pp. 367-547. McAllister, California's large game animals, 

 California Fish and Game, ix, 11-15, 1923; Canada leads in buffalo conservation, 

 California Fish and Game, xiv, 155-156, 1928. 



