THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 497 



robe. The. tongues were purchased at 25 cents each and sold in the mar- 

 kets farther east at 50 cents. In those days of criminal wastefulness it 

 was a very common thing for buffaloes to be slaughtered for their tongues 

 alone. Mr. George Catlin* relates that a few days previous to his ar- 

 rival at the mouth of the Teton Eiver (Dakota), in 1832, " an immense 

 herd of buffaloes had showed themselves on the opposite side of the 

 river," whereupon a party of five or six hundred Sioux Indians on horse- 

 back forded the river, attacked the herd, recrossed the river about sun- 

 set, and came into the fort with fourteen hundred fresh buffalo tongues, 

 which were thrown down in a mass, and for which they required only 

 a few gallons of whisky, which was soon consumed in " a little harmless 

 carouse," Mr. Catlin states that from all that he could learn not a skin 

 or a pound of meat, other than the tongues, was saved after this awful 

 slaughter. 



Judging from all accounts, it is making a safe estimate to say that 

 probably no fewer than fifty thousand buffaloes have been killed for 

 their tongues alone, and the most of these are undoubtedly chargeable 

 against white men, who ought to have known better. 



A great deal has been said about the slaughter of buffaloes by for- 

 eign sportsmen, particularly Englishmen ; but 1 must say that, from all 

 that can be ascertained on this point, this element of destruction has 

 been greatly exaggerated and overestimated. It is true that every 

 English sportsman who visited this country in the days of the buffalo 

 always resolved to have, and did have, "a buffalo hunt," and usually 

 under the auspices of United States Army officers. Undoubtedly these 

 parties did kill hundreds of buffaloes, but it is very doubtful whether 

 the aggregate of the number slain by foreign sportsmen would run up 

 higher than ten thousand. Indeed, for myself, I am well convinced 

 that there are many old ex-still-huuters yet living, each of whom is ac- 

 countable for a greater number of victims than all buffaloes killed 

 by foreign sportsmen would make added together. The professional 

 butchers were very much given to crying out against " them English 

 lords," and holding up their hands in holy horror at buffaloes killed 

 by them for their heads, instead of for hides to sell at a dollar apiece; 

 but it is due the American public to say that all this outcry was re- 

 ceived at its true value and deceived very few. By those in possession 

 of the facts it was recognized as " a blind," to divert public opinion 

 from the real culprits. 



Nevertheless it is very true that many men who were properly classed 

 as sportsmen, in contradistinction from the pot hunters, did engage in 

 useless and inexcusable slaughter to an extent that was highly repre- 

 hensible, to say the least. A sportsman is not supposed to kill game 

 wantonly, when it can be of no possible use to himself or any one 

 else, but a great many do it for all that. Indeed, the sportsman who 



* North American Indians, i, 256. 



H. Mis. 600, pt. 2 32 



