PREFATORY NOTE. 



It is hoped that the following historical account of the discovery, 

 partial utilization, and almost complete extermination of the great 

 American bison may serve to cause the public to fully realize the 

 folly ot allowing all our most valuable and interesting American mam- 

 mals to be wantonly destroyed in the same manner. The wild buffalo 

 is practically gone forever, and in a few more years, when the whitened 

 bones of the last bleaching skeleton shall have been picked up and 

 shipped East for commercial uses, nothing will remain of him save his 

 old, well-worn trails along the water- courses, a few museum specimens, 

 and regret for his fate. If his untimely end fails even to point a moral 

 that shall benefit the surviving species of mammals which are now being 

 slaughtered in like manner, it will be sad indeed. 



Although Bison americanus is a true bison, according to scientific 

 classification, and not a buffalo, the fact that more than sixty millions of 

 people in this country unite in calling him a "buffalo," and know him 

 by no other name, renders it quite unnecessary for me to apologize for 

 following, in part, a harmless custom which has now become so uni- 

 versal that all the naturalists in the world could not change it if they 



would. 



W. T. H. 



371 



