THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 395 



are destined to effect striking changes in the form of Bison americanus. 

 While this is to be expected to a certain extent with most large species, 

 the changes promise to be most conspicuous in the buffalo. The most 

 striking change is in the body between the hips and the shoulders. As 

 before remarked, it becomes astonishingly short and rotund, and through 

 liberal feeding and total lack of exercise the muscles of the shoulders 

 and hindquarters, especially the latter, are but feebly developed. 



The most striking example of the change of form in the captive buffalo 

 is the cow in the Central Park Menagerie, New York. Although this 

 animal is fully adult, and has given birth to three fine calves, she is 

 small, astonishingly short-bodied, and in comparison with the magnifi- 

 cently developed cows taken in 1886 by the writer in Montana, she 

 seems almost like an animal of another species. 



Both the live buffaloes in the National Museum collection of living 

 animals are developing the same shortness of body and lack of muscle, 

 and when they attain their full growth will but poorly resemble the 

 splendid proportions of the wild specimens in the Museum mounted 

 group, each of which has been mounted from a most careful and elabo- 

 rate series of post-mortem measurements. It may fairly be considered, 

 however, that the specimens taken by the Smithsonian expedition were 

 in every way more perfect representatives of the species than have been 

 usually taken in times past, for the simple reason that on account of the 

 muscle they had developed in the numerous chases they had survived, 

 and the total absence of the fat which once formed such a prominent 

 feature of the animal, they were of finer form, more active habit, and 

 keener intelligence than buffaloes possessed when they were so numerous. 

 Out of the millions which once composed the great northern herd, those ' 

 represented the survival of the fittest, and their existence at that time 

 was chiefly due to the keenness of their senses and their splendid mus- 

 cular powers in speed and endurance. 



Under such conditions it is only natural that animals of the highest 

 class should be developed. On the other hand, captivity reverses all 

 these conditions, while yielding an equally abundant food supply. 



In no feature is the change from natural conditions to captivity more 

 easily noticeable than in the eye. In the wild buffalo the eye is always 

 deeply set, well protected by the edge of the bony orbit, and perfect in 

 form and expression. The lids are firmly drawn around the ball, the 

 opening is so small that the white portion of the eyeball is entirely cov- 

 ered, and the whole form aud appearance of the organ is as shapely and 

 as pleasing in expression as the eye of a deer. 



In the captive the various muscles which support and control the eye- 

 ball seem to relax and thicken, aud the ball protrudes far beyond its 

 normal plane, showing a circle of white all around the iris, and bulging 

 out in a most uuuatural way. I do not mean to assert that this is com- 

 mon in captive buffaloes generally, but I have observed it to be dis- 

 agreeably conspicuous in many. 



