THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 



By William T. Hoknaday, 

 Superintendent of the National Zoological Park. 



PART I.— LIFE HISTORY OF THE BISON. 



I. Discovery of the species. 



The discovery of the American bisoo, as first made by Europeans, 

 occurred in the menagerie of a heathen king. 



In the year 1521, when Cortez reached Anahuac, the American bison 

 was seen for the first time by civilized Europeans, if we may be per- 

 mitted to thus characterize the horde of blood-thirsty plunder-seekers 

 who fought their way to the Aztec capital. With a degree of enter- 

 prise that marked hitn as an enlightened monarch, Montezuma main- 

 tained, for the instruction of his people, a well-appointed menagerie, of 

 which the historian De Solis wrote as follows (1724): 



"In the second Square of the same House were the Wild Beasts, 

 which were either presents to Montezuma, or taken by his Hunters, in 

 strong Cages of Timber, rang'd in good Order, and under Cover : Lions, 

 Tygers, Bears, and all others of the savage Kind which New-Spain 

 produced ; among which the greatest Rarity was the Mexican Bull ; a 

 wonderful composition of divers Animals. It has crooked Shoulders, 

 with a Bunch on its Back like a Camel ; its Flanks dry, its Tail large, 

 and its Neck cover'd with Hair like a Lion. It is cloven footed, its 

 Head armed like that of a Bull, which it resembles in Fierceness, with 

 no less strength and Agility." 



Thus was the first-seen buffalo described. The nearest locality from 

 whence it could have come was the State of Coahuila, in northern 

 Mexico, between 400 and 500 miles away, and at that time vehicles 

 were unknown to the Aztecs. But for the destruction of the whole 

 mass of the written literature of the Aztecs by the priests of the Span- 

 ish Conquest, we might now be reveling in historical accounts of the bison 

 which would make the oldest of our present records seem of compar- 

 atively recent date. 



Nine years after the event referred to above, or in 1530, another 

 Spanish explorer, Alvar Nunez Cabeza, afterwards called Cabeza de 

 Vaca — or, in other words " Cattle Cabeza,' 7 the prototype of our own 

 distinguished "Buffalo Bill" — was wrecked on the Gulf coast, west of 



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