124 



THE WOraD OF LIFE 



equally po^verful and ferocious mth those of Europe, must 

 also have been most dangerous enemies; but the bisons always 

 associated in numerous herds, and were so well guarded by the 

 old males, that they apj^ear to have suffered little from these 

 animals. The immense shaggy covering to the head, neck, 



Fig. 11. — The American Bison {Bos Americanus) . 



and breast of the male buffaloes, together with their short, 

 powerful horns, were an almost perfect protection ; and we 

 must consider these animals to have constituted one of the 

 highest developments of the great tribe of herbivorous quadru- 

 peds. 



The extension of railways over the whole country about the 

 middle of the century, and the fact that, as the herds dimin- 

 ished buffalo skins became more valuable, led to its rapid 

 extermination ; and at the present time only a small and d^\'in- 

 dling herd exists in the Yellowstone Park, and another in 

 north-western Canada. 



Even more remarkable has been the disappearance of the 

 passenger pigeon (Ectopistcs migratoria), so called from its 

 great powers of flight and its migration in vast flocks all over 

 Xorth America. The population of this bird was almost in- 

 credibly great, as described by the American ornithologists 

 Audubon and Wilson in the early part of the nineteenth cen- 



