THE AMERICAN BISON. 



JT REMARKABLE article re- 

 r\ cently appeared in the Scie^itific 

 ± \. American, written by Prof. Chas. 

 F. Holder, entitled, "A Crime 

 of a Century," in which is described the 

 extermination, the wiping out of the 

 American bison. 



" In 1870, and later," said an army 

 officer, " the plains were alive with 

 bison, and in crossing at places I had 

 difficulty in avoiding them, so vast 

 were the herds. If anyone had told 

 me then that in twenty or thirty years 

 they would have become almost en- 

 tirely extinct I should have regarded 

 the statement as that of an insane 

 person." 



We are able to corroborate this state- 

 ment. In August, 1869, while crossing 

 the Kansas plains in a stagecoach we 

 had the privilege, as we regard it now, 

 of seeing one of the largest herds of 

 buffalo then remaining. When first 

 seen, at a distance of from three to five 

 miles, we could distinctl)' hear the 

 roaring of the animals, who had been 

 stampeded, perhaps by hunters, who 

 were at that time wantonly destroying 

 the grand creatures for their robes. 

 That so many of these animals could 

 have been killed in mere wantonness, 

 says Prof. Holder, seems incredible 

 when their vast numbers are realized. 

 We first hear of the bison from Cortez 

 and his followers in 1521. Montezuma 

 had one in a zoological garden, the 

 specimen, in all probability, having 

 been caught in Coahuila. In 1530 Ca- 

 beza saw them in Texas, and in 1542 

 Coronado found a herd in what is now 

 the Indian Territory, one of his officers 

 describing them as horrible beasts that 

 demoralized the horses. In 1612 Sir 

 Samuel Argall observed herds of bison 

 near the national capital, and, it is 

 said, two hundred and eighty-seven 

 years ago herds of bison grazed on the 

 site of the capitol building at Wash- 

 ington. In 1678 Father Hennepin ob- 

 served them in what is now northern 

 Illinois, and in October, 1729, Col. W. 

 Bird saw herds in North Carolina and 

 Virginia. It is known, in fact, that the 



bison formerly ranged in millions from 

 the Atlantic seaboard to the Gulf of 

 Mexico,^ from Texas to the Great Slave 

 Lake, and as far west as central Ne- 

 vada. "As to their numbers, they were 

 like the sands of the seashore, and the 

 accounts given by those who hunted 

 them twenty or thirty years ago to day 

 seem like vagaries of a disordered im- 

 agination." Colonel Dodge, in his me- 

 moirs, states that on one occasion he 

 rode twenty-five miles in Arkansas, 

 always being in a herd of buffaloes, or 

 many small herds, with but a small 

 separating strip between them. The 

 animals paid but little attention to him, 

 merely moving slowly out of the way 

 or advancing, bringing the whole herd 

 of thousands down on him with the 

 roar of an avalanche. This he met by 

 standing fast and firing when they 

 came within short range, the shot caus- 

 ing them to divide. This he did as a 

 protection, otherwise they would have 

 run him down and crushed man, horses, 

 and wagon. This herd was later found 

 to be fifty miles wide and to occupy 

 five days in passing a given point on 

 its way north. It was estimated that 

 the herd comprised half a millon buffa- 

 loes. A train on the Kansas Pacific 

 road in that state in 1868 passed be- 

 tween the towns of Ellsworth and Sher- 

 idan — one hundred and twenty miles — 

 through a continuous herd of buffa- 

 loes. They were packed so that the 

 earth was black, and more than once 

 the train was stopped, the surging mass 

 becoming a menace to human safety. 

 This is the same herd first seen by us 

 in August, 1869, and again in 1871 and 

 1872. An army officer relates that he 

 was at that time on duty in the pay 

 department, which made it necessary 

 for him to travel on the Atchison, To- 

 peka & Santa Fe railroad. One day 

 the train entered a large herd, which 

 scattered and seemed to go wild at the 

 shrieking of the whistle and the ring- 

 ing of the bell. As the train went on 

 the thicker they became, until the very 

 earth appeared to be a rolling mass of 

 humps as far as the eye could see. 



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