498 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



kills sparingly and conscientiously is rather tbe exception than the rule. 

 Colonel Dodge thus refers to the work of some foreign sportsmen: 



" In the fall of that year [1872] three English gentlemen went out with 

 me for a short hunt, and in their excitement bagged more buffalo than 

 would have supplied a brigade." As a general thing, however, the pro- 

 fessional sportsmen who went out to have a buffalo hunt for the excite- 

 ment of the chase and the trophies it yielded, nearly always found the 

 bison so easy a victim, and one whose capture brought so little glory to 

 the hunter, that the chase was voted very disappointing, and soon 

 abandoned in favor of nobler game. In those days there was no more 

 to boast of in killing a buffalo than in the assassination of a Texas steer. 



It was, then, the hide-hunters, white and red, but especially white, 

 who wiped out the great southern herd in four short years. The prices 

 received for hides varied considerably, according to circumstances, but 

 for tbe green or undressed article it usually ranged from 50 cents for 

 the skins of calves to $1.25 for those of adult animals in good condition. 

 Such prices seem ridiculously small, but when it is remembered that, 

 when buffaloes were plentiful it was no uncommon thing for a hunter to 

 kill from forty to sixty head in a day, it will readily be seen that the 

 chances of making very handsome profits were sufficient to tempt hunt- 

 ers to make extraordinary exertions. Moreover, even when the buffa- 

 loes were nearly gone, the country was overrun with men who had abso- 

 lutely nothing else to look to as a means of livelihood, and so, no matter 

 whether the profits were great or small, so long as enough buffaloes 

 remained to make it possible to get a living by their pursuit, they were 

 hunted down with the most determined persistency and pertinacity. 



6. Statistics of the slaughter. — The most careful and reliable estimate 

 ever made of results of the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd is 

 that of Col. Eichard Irving Dodge, and it is the only one I know of 

 w 7 hich furnishes a good index of the former size of that herd. Inas- 

 much as this calculation was based on actual statistics, supplemented 

 by personal observations and inquiries made in that region during the 

 great slaughter, I can do no better than to quote Colonel Dodge 

 almost in full.* 



The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Kailroad furnished the following 

 statistics of the buffalo product carried by it during the years 1872, 

 1873, and 3874: 



Buffalo product. 



Year ! No. of skins 

 carried. 



Meat carried. 



Bone carried. 



1872 165, 721 



1873 1 251,443 



1874 42, 289 



Pounds. 



Pounds. 

 1,135,300 

 2, 743, 100 

 6, 914, 950 



1,617,600 

 632, 800 



Total . 459, 453 ! 2, 250, 400 



10, 793, 350 



* Plains of tbe Great West, pp. 139-144. 



