182 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



annual hunts than they could possibly use, or from which they saved merely 

 the tongues. The wolves were formerly also a great check upon the increase 

 of the buffalo, but the hunters by means of poison have reduced their num- 

 ber much more rapidly than even that of the buffalo, so that the influence of 

 the wolves in hastening the extirpation of the buffalo is now but slight 

 The Indians, too, have vanished before the westward advance of the white 

 man more rapidly even than the buffalo, so that the destruction of the but 

 falo by the Indians is now relatively far less than formerly. Hence the 

 opinion, as stated in the preceding pages, has been advanced, and to some 

 extent publicly advocated, that the present rate of the decrease of the buf- 

 falo is actually less than formerly, notwithstanding the vast numbers annu- 

 ally killed by white hunters, in consequence of the greatly reduced numbers 

 of the wolves and the Indians. A slight glance at the history of the decline 

 of the buffalo, however, is sufficient to at once indicate the fallacy of such an 

 opinion; and none are better aware of this than the most active partici- 

 pators in their destruction, — the professional buffalo-hunters themselves. — 

 many of whom are candid enough to admit that, through the almost utter 

 extermination of the bufialo, their present occupation will soon pass away, 

 unless the general or local governments enforce the most peremptory restric- 

 tions upon their slaughter. 



The Indians, prior to the discovery of the continent by Europeans, appear 

 nut in have seriously affected the number of bufialoes, their natural increase 

 equalling the number destroyed both by the Indians and the wolves. When 

 the Jesuit missionaries penetrated the range of the buffalo east of the Missis- 

 sippi, in the seventeenth century, they found this animal the main subsist- 

 ence of the Indian tribes, as it doubtle88 had I n lor centuries, its llesh solv- 

 ing them lor food, its skins for shields, clothing, and tents, and its hair. wool, 

 horns, hoofs, and hones for various articles of ornament and use. No sooner. 

 however, had Europeans made settlements within its range, than the bufia- 

 loes began to disappear, and were either wholly destroyed or driven from 

 their favorite haunts in the short space of a verj few years. The destruc- 

 tion increased with the increase of the white population till they were totally 

 exterminated east of the Mississippi (al least, south of the present State of 

 Minnesota I, :i- already shown, prior to the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. Even ;i- late ;i~ fifty years ago thej occupied a considerable area west 

 of tie' Rocky Mountains, all the extensive parks and valleys within these 

 mountains, and .ill the vast plains and prairies between them and the Missis- 



