

17Q THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Add to the foregoing the total number already recorded in 

 captivity (256) and those under government protection in the 

 Yellowstone Park (200), and the whole number of individuals ot 

 Bison americanus now living is 1091. 



From this time it is probable that many rumours ot the 

 sudden appearance of herds of Buffaloes will become current. 

 Already there have been three or four that almost deserve 

 special mention. The first appeared in March, 1887, when 

 various Western newspapers published a circumstantial account 

 of how a herd of about three hundred Buffaloes swam the 

 Missouri River, about ten miles above Bismarck, near the town 

 of Painted Woods, and ran on in a south-westerly direction. A 

 letter of inquiry, addressed to Mr. S. A. Peterson, postmaster at 

 Painted Woods, elicited the following reply : — ' The whole 

 rumour is false, and without any foundation. I saw it first in 



the newspaper, where I believe it originated.' 



In these days of railroads and numberless hunting parties, 

 there is not the remotest possibility of there being anywhere in 

 the United States a herd of a hundred, or even fifty, Buffaloes 

 which has escaped observation. Of the eighty-five head still 

 existing in a wild state, it may safely be predicted that not even 

 one will remain alive five years hence. A Buffalo is now so great 

 a prize, and by the ignorant it is considered so great an honour(?) 

 to kill 'one, that extraordinary exertions will be made to find and 

 shoot down without mercy the ■ last Buffalo.' There is no possible 

 chance for the race to be perpetuated in a wild state, and in a 

 few years more hardly a bone will remain above ground to mark 

 the existence of the most prolific mammalian species that ever 

 existed, so far as we know." 



THE EFFECTS OF MUSICAL SOUNDS UPON ANIMALS.* 



By Robert E. C. Stearns. 



(Continued from p. 91.) 



An anecdote relating to Pigeons and Music is recorded by 

 Goodrich [' Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom,* Boston, 1848J 

 — "Bertoni, a famous instructor in music, while residing m 

 Venice, took a Pigeon for his companion, and, being very fond 



From the ' American Naturalist,' 1890, PP- MB— 242. 





