THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 299 



from necessity, to be dispensed with, when a few years shall have destroyed the last 

 of the animals producing them. 



It may be answered, perhaps, that the necessaries of life are given in exchange for 

 these robes ; but what, I would ask, are the necessities in Indian life, where they 

 have buffaloes in abundance to live on % The Indian's necessities are entirely arti- 

 ficial — are all created ; and when the buffaloes shall have disappeared In his country, 

 which will be within eight or ten years, I would ask, who is to supply him with the 

 necessaries of life then? And I would ask, further (and leave the question to be an- 

 swered ten years hence), when the skins shall have been stripped from the back uf 

 the last animal, who is to resist the ravages of three hundred thousand starving sav- 

 ages, and in their trains, one million five hundred thousand wolves, whom direst 

 necessity will have driven from their desolate and gameless plains to seek for the 

 means of subsistence along our exposed frontier ? God has everywhere supplied man, 

 in a state of nature, with the necessaries of life, and before we destroy the game of 

 his country, or teach him new desires, he has no wants that are not satisfied. 



Amongst the tribes who have been impoverished and repeatedly removed the neces- 

 saries of life are extended with a better grace from the hands of civilized man. Ninety 

 thousand of such have already been removed, and they draw from Government some 

 five or six hundred thousand dollars annually in cash, which money passes imme- 

 diately into the hands of white men, and for it the necessaries of life may be abun- 

 dantly furnished. But who, I would ask, are to furnish the Indians who have been 

 instructed in this unnatural mode, living upon such necessaries, and even luxuries of 

 life, extended to them by the hands of white men, when those annuities are at an end, 

 aud the skin is stripped from the hist of the animals which God gave them for their 

 subsistence ? 



Reader, I will stop here, lest you might forget to answer these important queries — 

 these are questions which I know will puzzle the world— and, perhaps, it is not right 

 that I should ask them. — Pages 258, 259, 264, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



THE EXTINCTION OF THE BUFFALO IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The buffalo may now (May, 1887) be said to be practically extinct iti 

 the United States. Here and there in two or three isolated spots in 

 Montana, Colorado, and Idaho occasionally a dozen may be seen. The 

 hunter, merciless sportsman, Indian, and civilization have all contrib- 

 uted to this result. Recently it was stated that an enterprising ranch- 

 man in the vicinity of Fort Peck, Mont., had a herd of seventy- five 

 carefully guarded, and from which the exhibitions and zoological gar- 

 dens may expect a supply in the future. Several bands are said to be 

 at present roaming in the northwestern part of the Dominion of Canada. 

 The occasional small bands seen in Idaho and Montana are probably 

 wanderers from these. In May, 1880, the Smithsonian Institution dis- 

 patched Mr. W. T. Hornaday, with a small expedition, to Idaho and 

 Montana, to secure, if possible, a few specimens of the buffalo for the 

 Rational Museum. His expedition is thus noticed in Science for June, 

 1886: 



The National Museum has sent its chief taxidermist, Mr. William T. Hornaday, 

 on a hunting tour through the far West, for the purpose of obtaining specimens of 

 the buffalo before this animal becomes extinct in this country. Mr. Hornaday took 

 with him as an assistant Mr. A. H. Forney, an attache" of the museum. The party 

 reached Miles City, Mont., May 12. Some Crow Indians are said to have killed 

 four buffalo on the Musselshell River above six weeks ago. It is firmly believed by 



