430 KEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887 



lect was one of the important factors in his phenomenally swift exter- 

 mination. He was provokingly slow in comprehending the existence 

 and nature of the dangers that threatened his life, and, like the stupid 

 brute that he was, would very often stand quietly and see two or three 

 score, or even a hundred, of his relatives and companions shot down 

 before his eyes, with no other feeling than one of stupid wonder and 

 curiosity. Neither the noise nor smoke of the still-hunter's rifle, the 

 falling, struggling, nor the final death of his companions conveyed to 

 his mind the idea of a danger to be fled from, and so the herd stood still 

 and allowed the still-hunter to slaughter its members at will. 



Like the Indian, and many white men also, the buffalo seemed to feel 

 that their number was so great it could never be sensibly diminished. 

 The presence of such a great multitude gave to each of its individuals 

 a feeling of security and mutual support that is very generally found 

 in animals who congregate in great herds. The time was when a band 

 of elk would stand stupidly and wait for its members to be shot down 

 one after another ; but it is believed that this was due more to panic 

 than to a lack of comprehension of danger. 



The fur seals who cover the "hauling grounds" of St. Paul and St. 

 George Islands, Alaska, in countless thousands, have even less sense of 

 danger and less comprehension of the slaughter of thousands of their 

 kind, which takes place daily, than had the bison. They allow them- 

 selves to be herded and driven off landwards from the hauling-ground 

 for half a mile to the killing-ground, and, finally, with most cheerful 

 indifference, permit the Aleuts to club their brains out. 



It is to be. added that whenever and wherever seals or sea-lions in- 

 habit a given spot, with but few exceptions, it is an easy matter to 

 approach individuals of the herd. The presence of an immense number 

 of individuals plainly begets a feeling of security and mutual support. 

 And let not the bison or the seal be blamed for this, for man himself 

 exhibits the same foolish instinct. Who has not met the woman of ma- 

 ture years and full intellectual vigor who is mortally afraid to spend a 

 night entirely alone in her own house, but is perfectly willing to do so, 

 and often does do so without fear, when she can have the company of one 

 small and helpless child, or, what is still worse, three or four of them ? 



But with the approach of extermination, and the utter breaking up 

 of all the herds, a complete change has been wrought in the character 

 of the bison. At last, but alas! entirely too late, the crack of the rifle 

 and its accompanying puff of smoke conveyed to the slow mind of the 

 bison a sense of deadly danger to himself. At last he recognized man, 

 whether on foot or horseback, or peering at him from a coulee, as his 

 mortal enemy. At last he learned to run. In 1886 we found the scat- 

 tered remnant of the great northern herd the wildest and most difficult 

 animals to kill that we had ever hunted in any country. It had been 

 . only through the keenest exercise of all their powers of self-preserva- 

 tion that those buffaloes had survived until that late day, and we found 



