THE BISON. 387 



Mr. J. A, Allen,2 in his able monograph, published over ten 

 years ago, writes : " When stress of weather for instance, or other 

 circumstances have brought these animals within the hunters' 

 power, scores and even hundreds have often been killed by single 

 parties, already so well supplied with the products of the chase that 

 they had no need for, and could make no use of the animals thus 

 destroyed. The buffaloes, from their great numbers and the little 

 tact required in their capture, have probably been the victims of 

 indiscriminate, improvident, and wanton slaughter, to a greater 

 extent than any other North American animal. As already stated, 

 thousands are still killed annually merely for so called ' sport,' no use 

 whatever being made of them ; thousands of others of which only 

 the tongue or other slight morsel is saved ; hundreds of thousands 

 of others for their hides, which yield the hunter but little more 

 than enough to pay him for the trouble of taking and selHng them ; 

 while many more, though escaping from their would-be captors, 

 die of their wounds and yield no return whatever to their 

 murderers. Of the hundreds of thousands that for the last few 

 years have been annually killed, probably less than a fourth have 

 been to any great extent utilized. "While this wanton and careless 

 waste has ever characterized the contact of the white race with 

 the sluggish and inoffensive bison of our plains and prairies, the 

 Indians have likewise been improvident in their slaughter of this 

 animal, often killing hundreds or even thousands more during 

 their grand annual hunts than they could possibly use, or from 

 which they saved merely the tongues." 



This brutal butchery has not been confined to any particular 

 district, but has characterized the custom of the white man and 

 the aborigines in the territory of British ISTorbh America as well 

 as the United States ; the consequence is that now every traveller 

 across the continent has accounts to narrate of the bones and 

 skeletons of the slaughtered buffaloes that He bleaching on tlie 

 prairies. Captain W- F. Butler, in his work "The Great Lone 

 Land," as far back as 1872, writes : " This region bears the name 

 of the Touchwood hills. Around it, far into endless space, stretch 

 immense plains of bare and scanty vegetation, plains scored with 



■ - " The American Bisons, Living and Extinct." 



c 2 



