528 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



With private owners of captive buffaloes, the temptations to produce 

 cross-breeds will be so great that it is more than likely the breeding of 

 pure-blood buffaloes will be neglected. Indeed, unless some stockman 

 like Mr. 0. J. Jones takes particular pains to protect his full blood but' 

 faloes, and keep the breed absolutely pure, in twenty years there will 

 not be a pure-blood animal of that species on any stock farm in this 

 country. Under existing conditions, the constant tendency of the nu- 

 merous domestic forms is to absorb and utterly obliterate the few wild 

 ones. 



If we may judge from the examples set us by European governments, 

 it is clearly the duty of our Government to act in this matter, and act 

 promptly, with a degree of liberality and promptness which can not be 

 otherwise than highly gratifying to every American citizen and every 

 friend of science throughout the world. The Fiftieth Congress, at its 

 last session, responded to the call made upon it, and voted $200,000 for 

 the establishment of a National Zoological Park in the District of Co- 

 lumbia on a grand scale. One of the leading purposes it is destined to 

 serve is the preservation and breeding in comfortable, and so far as 

 space is concerned, luxurious captivity of a number of fine specimens of 

 every species of American quadruped now threatened with extermina- 

 tion.* 



At least eight or ten buffaloes of pure breed should be secured very 

 soon by the Zoological Park Commission, by gift if possible, and cared 

 for with special reference to keeping the breed absolutely pure, and 

 keeping the herd from deteriorating and dying out through in-and-in breed- 

 ing. 



The total expense would be trifling in comparison with the impor- 

 tance of the end to be gained, and in that way we might, in a small 

 measure, atone for our neglect of the means which would have pro- 

 tected the great herds from extinction. In this way, by proper man- 

 agement, it will be not only possible but easy to preserve fine living 

 representatives of this important species for centuries to come. 



The result of continuing in-breeding is certain extinction. Its prog- 

 ress may be so slow as to make no impression upon the mind of a herd- 

 owner, but the end is only a question of time. The fate of a majority 

 of the herds of British wild cattle (Bos urus) warn us what to expect 

 with the American bison under similar circumstances. Of the fourteen 

 herds of wild cattle which were in existence in England and Scotland 

 during the early part of the present century, direct descendants of the 



* It is indeed an unbounded satisfaction to be able to now record the fact tbat tbis 

 important task, in which every American citizen has a personal interest, is actually 

 to be undertaken. Last year we could only say it ought to be undertaken. In its 

 accomplishment, the Government expects the co-operation of private individuals all 

 over the country in the form of gifts of desirable living animals, for no government 

 could afford to purchase all the animals necessary for a great Zoological Garden, pro- 

 vide for their wants in a liberal way, and yet give the public free access to the col- 

 lection, as is to be given to the National Zoological Park, 



