134 BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 
500. Now, there are large tracts of land leased annually for small sums 
to large cattle dealers. There are large tracts in Indian reservations 
which can be utilized for some such purpose more legitimately than to 
lease to cattle men for stock. If a tract of land containing from 50 to 100 
square miles were set apart for this particular use, with an appropria- 
tion at the beginning of $15,000, and an annual appropriation of $5,000, 
there certainly should be no difficulty whatever in developing a herd from 
a small beginning to one that would be a credit to the nation. 
The government and care of the herd should be placed under the 
jurisdiction of the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture. 
The men in the Survey are keenly alive to the importance of an attempt 
to save the buffalo from extinctin, and may be relied on to look after the 
animals as carefully as they are looked after in any zoological park. 
It is hardly to be expected that the animals will thrive in the Yellow- 
stone Park, where the winters are long and severe, the summers short and 
concentrated, and where protection is likewise afforded to the wild ani- 
mals which prey upon the calves. The buffalo, unlike the deer and elk, 
seems to remain in a limited territory. If they are to thrive and mul- 
tiply, they must be looked after and cared for. With a range in Mon- 
tana, Idaho, Arizona or New Mexico as mentioned above, with a small 
herd under care of the Biological Survey of the Gvernment, a small ap- 
propriation will, with proper handling, produce a large herd in fifteen 
or twenty years. 
It is to be hoped that the recent small appropriation made by congress 
for the preservation of the buffalo will be sufficient to protect it from 
extinction. It is doubtful, however, whether they will ever thrive in the 
Yellowstone Park without much care in the winter. A lower altitude, 
with less snow and longer summer, similar to that of the Flathead Indian 
Reservation, will insure the safety of the herd with small amount of at- 
tention and expense. 
