Oct. 29, 1904.3 
S6l 
zero, Fahr. Personally I have never seen but two 
blizzards since that date. 
A Lesson in Bones. 
Readers are doubtless familiar with the oft published 
story of the wholesale slaughter of _ the buffalo on the 
more southerly plains, beginning with the opening of 
the Union Pacific and other roads entering the region, 
the introduction of modern breech-loading weapons, 
the entry of the commercial spirit which sought to 
traffic in large numbers of hides, and the wholesale 
methods of slaughter adopted by both Indian and white 
hunters, in an effort to supply this demand. I shall 
have no space to repeat what others have written, but 
must confine myself to showing what the buffalo them- 
selves were doing in the meantime, as they certainly 
proved themselves not the kind of game to stand still 
and be slaughtered. 
When, after considerable rambling over the prairies 
of western Minnesota and the eastern counties of 
Dakota, I reached a point a few miles to the westward 
of the Big Sioux River, I noted with astonishment the 
enormous number of skeletons of buffalo lying bleach- 
ing upon the prairies. These skeletons, with the great 
round skulls and black, shell-like horns, were in a per- 
fect state of preservation, and but few gave any ap- 
pearance of having been disturbed since the death of 
the animal. I had always associated these animals 
with the prairies from Nebraska southward, had never 
heard of their being hunted in Dakota, and was at a 
loss to account for the presence of these bones. The 
explanation that they had been exterminated by hunters 
never satisfied me. Counting the skeletons on the half 
section entered by me, I found that they numbered 
fully two hundred. 
I said to myself: "If hunters killed these animals I 
can find broken limbs, and rifle balls marking ribs and 
other bones, and if they were as hard to kill as claimed, 
some of them should show many such marks." I there- 
fore searched often and diligently, but the evidence 
was lacking. A stray shoulder blade, older in appear- 
ance than the rest, had a steel spear-head _ sticking 
through it, as evidence that an Indian had killed this 
animal many years ago; but on the newer looking and 
complete skeletons no mark of violence was to be ob- 
served, and I felt that some great error had been made in 
assigning the cause of their death. After witnessing that 
blizzard winter, I concluded that what was being over- 
looked was the part played by those three "smart fel- 
lows" of the old nursery rhyme, "Jack Frost," "Tom 
Snow" and "Borean Dan," who had evidently held the 
trump card in this great American tragedy of the nine- 
teenth century. 
The Passing of the Bison. 
After a most searching investigation of this subject, 
I am now satisfied that the following is the true his- 
tory of this tragedy: 
The buffalo were migratory in their habits. Long 
distance traveling was their long suit. It is probable 
they could wear out the best horse in a month's chase. 
Unlike our domestic cattle or the slow moving buffalo 
of the far east, the bison could strike a lope and keep 
it up by the hour, without once breaking the gait. 
To the north of their native ranges, beyond the "big 
bend" in the Missouri River, and stretching away four 
hundred miles lay the great grassy prairies of the 
Territory of Dakota, then an uninhabited region, there 
being not even an Indian making a permanent home 
anywhere between the Big Sioux and Red Rivers on 
the east and the Missouri River on the west, except 
perhaps at some such location as Devil's Lake. Driven 
from their old ranges between the Rio Grande and the 
Platte, the buffalo swam the Missouri above the big 
bend — and never came back. Writers have noted the 
fact that they swam this river in immense herds num- 
bering many millions, but the point not observed is the 
vital one— they never came back. Old trappers along 
the river and early settlers at Yankton knew, it, and 
often asked each other: "By what instinct does the 
buffalo always swim the Missouri in one direction? 
Why does he go from Nebraska into Dakota in the 
spring, but never return in the fall?" He was fleeing 
from the incessant crack of the rifle, and from the 
traps and pitfalls prepared for him by "pot hunters," 
and, though he knew it not, to a fate more certain and 
terrible than that he was leaving behind. 
Upon reaching these quiet pastures the herds natur- 
ally split into smaller bands, under the leadership of 
the strongest bulls, each band choosing its own feed- 
ing grounds, from which the leaders would drive off all 
intruders of their own species. For protection against 
prowling wolves and other enemies, it was their habit 
to gather at night in a particular spot, choosing _ an 
elevation from which they could obtain a good view 
on all sides, and returning to the same spot every 
night. They must have maintained quite a military for- 
mation, with a guard of the strongest animals on the 
outside, where, as one observer claims, they marched 
in a circular path throughout the night, while another 
maintains an intruder would have found a bristling line 
of heads turned outward all round the circle. 
These yarding places were very plainly marked be- 
fore the soil was put under cultivation, as the prairie 
grasses, once subdued, are never renewed again with the 
same varieties. They were exactly circular in form, and 
one which I plowed through in 1880 was fully one hundred 
feet in diameter, and might easily have yarded two 
hundred animals. The weeds which would have grown 
upon it during the first few years after desertion had 
disappeared, and a new sod had formed. The odor of 
the barn yard was still very marked upon it, and the 
first crops plainly showed the effect of the fertilizer. 
From these facts I estimated at that time that it had 
been deserted about nine or ten years. 
It will be seen, then, that it would have been neces- 
sary for new arrivals to move on toward the north, 
until they reached unpreempted pasturage, which would 
lead them entirely across Dakota and probably across 
the British Province of Manitoba as well. 
On these ranges the herds would be fat and sleek in 
the fall, for the grasses are of the very best, and never 
fail in dry or wet seasons. They would also survive one 
of those mild winters I have mentioned, and be in fine 
condition in spring, as the buffalo grass dries into a 
natural hay, which is sweet and nutritious all winter. 
Even in the more common colder but snowless winters 
it is not probable they would suffer much loss. In case 
they so survived for several years, their numbers would 
increase enormously. But when the snow lay deep 
upon the ground, and the great blizzard came down 
from the north, no escape was possible. Many would 
be buried where they sought the shelter of some hill 
or sharp break in the prairie, and share the fate of the 
old oxen. Large clusters of bones found in such spots 
indicate that this happened. Those which survived the 
storm would most certainly be doomed. Not a spear 
of grass could be seen in 1881, and no grass-feeding 
animal except the jack rabbit could possibly reach it, 
and I do not know how he managed to do so. 
That season of 1881 marked the end of the antelope, 
a handsome little animal of the deer kind, which used 
to watch me from his point of vantage on the top of a 
neighboring hill. His feed cut off by snow, his slender 
hoofs breaking through the crust when he tried to run, 
he was at the mercy of his enemies, man, dog and wolf, 
and not one survived in that region. 
As late as 1869 or 1870 large herds of buffalo were 
seen swimming the Missouri. About 1872, when the 
Northern Pacific Railroad was graded through west of 
Fargo, the bones were lying everywhere upon the 
prairies. At that time particles of hide or sinew were 
still attached to many of these bones, showing that they 
had not been exposed to the elements longer than one 
or two seasons. Rumors of herds of live buffalo were 
also heard up to 1875, but always, like the mirage in 
the desert, at some distant point. Diligent inquiry 
failed to locate them. One settler claimed the dis- 
tinction of having killed a lone animal, which must have 
survived in the shelter of one of those small fringes 
of stunted timber which border a few of the permanent 
lakes. He is the only man I ever saw who claimed to 
have killed a buffalo in Dakota. If there ever was an 
extended hunt by white hunters in the interior of that 
territory, I have been unable to- learn of it. There was 
no chance on these open prairies for the methods of 
the pot hunter. 
Ask the settler how these bones came there, and he will 
probably answer: "I suppose the Injuns killed 'em 
for fun." Ask the Indian, he will grunt, and offer no 
explanation. 
Eastern Dakota (by which I mean that part of the 
two present States lying east of the Missouri River) has 
an area of fully 80,000 square miles. Let us suppose 
50,000 square miles of this to have been included in the 
buffalo range. The half section I have mentioned lies 
upon the extreme eastern limits of this range. There 
were places where the bones lay much thicker than 
there, and where they were gathered and shipped in 
car lots, for commercial uses. I will, however, estimate 
on the basis of two hundred per section, or square 
mile, and we have 50,000 square miles, with 200 per 
square mile, equals 10,000,000 skeletons scattered over 
the prairies of eastern Dakota, in 1880. This we would 
be compelled to double, in order to include Manitoba, 
giving 20,000, coo as a conservative estimate of the re- 
mains of those herds which swam the Missouri near 
the Nebraska line, and which I believe must all have 
perished in one season. The question I will leave open 
is whether any buffalo remained at that time in eastern 
Nebraska and Kansas, to share the same fate. 
That similar things had happened long before, I 
think I have found proof in the writtings of Washing- 
ton Irving, who himself killed a buffalo in Nebraska, 
in 1832. In one of his interesting accounts of western 
adventure, as his hero, Captain Bonneville, was tra- 
versing the valley of the Platte, in 1832, he notes the 
following incident: "At one place he observed a field 
decorated with buffalo skulls, arranged in circles, curves 
and other mathematical figures, as if for some mystic 
rite or ceremony. - They were almost innumerable, and 
seem to have been a vast hecatomb offered up in thanks- 
giving to the Great/'Spirit for some signal success in 
the chase." 
Whence came these skulls of animals, which must 
have been dead long prior to 1832, in a region where 
the only hunters had been savages with long-handled 
spears? They could not have been killed by these 
savages, as was evidently supposed, but the dry skulls 
had been gathered upon the prairies. We will refer the 
question to some rancher who has lost his herds in 
the forks of the Platte, in some more recent hard 
winters. 
Let us now look to the westward, and we shall find 
that by far the larger numbers of these migratory 
herds passed over those great arid plains between the 
Black Hills country and the Rockies. On those plains 
they found practically no feed, the vegetation con- 
sisting of cactus and sage brush. They therefore kept 
straight on to the north for more than a thousand miles 
from their starting point, millions on millions of them 
never pausing until they reached the fertile regions of 
the Saskatchewan, across the border in what was then 
the Hudson Bay Company's territory, a country in 
which hunting was a practical impossibility. A friend 
of mine who assisted in locating the line of the Union 
Pacific Railroad across those plains in 1867, was 
blocked for hours at a time by the northward rush of 
those mighty herds, an experience not at all unusual. 
When the Canadian Pacific road was built through 
the Saskatchewan valley about 1882, observers reported 
that the prairies appeared white with the skeletons of 
somthing like 5,000 buffalo to the square mile. These 
bones were piled in mountain heaps at the railroad 
stations, where they were gathered for shipment. A 
stream was named "Pile of Bones River," and the 
present capital of Assinobia territory, Regina, was 
originally "Pile of Bones." 
Year after year great herds of southern bred animals 
had rushed into those northern regions. Fierce and 
terrible must have been the fight for supremacy upon 
those limited pastures, for there were more animals 
than the grass could support. Here, too, the winters 
shut down early, and a temperature of 50 to 60 below 
zero is not an unusual thing. Clearly, without feed 
or shelter, and with the addition of this terrible cold, 
not one could possibly survive. The wooded regions 
were occupied by a stronger and fiercer buffalo, long 
inured to that climate, which easily kept these migra- 
tory herds at bay. 
In the fertile sections of Montana and Wyoming they 
would probably fare somewhat better, but still not be 
entirely safe. Stockmen ' have found that their cattle 
will live upon the ranges, even if the snow is quite 
deep, so long as it remains soft, so that they can paw 
it away after the manner of the reindeer; but when the 
chinook wind blows over the passes from the Pacific 
and softens the top of the snow, forming a crust with 
the following freeze, it is all off and the stock must be 
fed, or perish. 
We have now disposed of everything except the Pan- 
handle of Texas, portions of western Kansas and east- 
ern Colorado, and certain sheltered spots in the moun- 
tains, as being about the only spots where the herds 
could possibly survive a really severe winter. And was 
not that condition after 1872? After that date hunters 
were pursuing the "southern herd" and the "mountain 
herd," which might more properly have been mentioned 
as broken remnants, for that is all they were. 
There was no realization of the fact, but there was 
a spring when the sun arose over an awful spectacle 
of death and desolation upon the prairies; when there 
was food there for all the carnivorous birds and beasts 
in the world; the tragedy was complete, and the buffalo 
never would come back. 
As long as those great herds were in existence, there 
never were hunters in all the west to keep down the 
increase, I care not what methods they adopted. After 
they were scattered and gone, the rest was easy, and 
the race was almost extinct before there was any reali- 
zation of what had happened. 
I am sorry to deprive the hunter of his glory, but is 
not here circumstantial evidence sufficient to convict 
"Old Boreas" in any court of record? 
Chicago, 111. ROMANZO N. BUNN. 
Buffalo and Quail. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Reference in an editorial to the theory of a western 
correspondent that the buffalo were wiped out by hard 
winters, not slaughtered by hide-hunters, recalls to mind 
the testimony given by Col. W. F. Cody, Buffalo Jones, 
and others to a committee of Congress having under con- 
sideration a bill setting aside a large tract of Government 
land for a buffalo' range and providing for restoration of 
the herds. Col. Cody testified then, and he has told me 
since, that the extermination of the buffalo herds was in- 
stigated and encouraged by the generals commanding the 
troops on the frontier as a military measure against In- 
dians. , The buffalo was the red man's commissary on the 
hoof, and while the herds roamed the plains the Indians 
could not be kept on the reservations. In order to control 
the Indians, the military authorities decided that it was 
necessary to deprive them of the source of supplies for 
their war parties. Generals Sheridan and Sherman ap- 
proved the plan, and the slaughtering was done by troops, 
and by Crows, Crees, and other friendly tribes, who were 
encouraged in the work and assisted with ammunition. 
The virtual extermination of the great herds was accom- 
plished with startling celerity, it will be remembered. 
Col. Cod}', Buffalo Jones, and men of their sort must 
be credited with accurate knowledge of the things they 
talk about. So it is quite possible that the obloquy heaped 
upon hide-hunters and tourist sportsmen for many years 
has not been wholly deserved. How much the hard win- 
ters had to do with the obliteration of buffalo cannot 
be determined until we see the evidence collected by your 
western correspondent. Incidentally the destructiv and 
miscreant hide-hunter may turn out to be another busted 
myth. 
I note in. 3'our columns a paragraph about quail taking 
to trees in Virginia. It refers, doubtless, to' the Bob 
White. Years ago in the Sierra foothills I hunted Cali- 
fornia blue quail and noticed that when flushed and scat- 
tered they frequently flew into the branches of oak trees. 
Starlight, a Gladstone setter of high quality, over whom. 
I shot during one season, often pointed birds in trees. In 
New Mexico the quail habitually go into the trees at dusk 
and roost there all night. I had a shooting companion 
whom I could not dissuade from the habit of potting birds 
from the trees on the way home after a day's shooting. 
He would shoot fairly all day in the field, but if his bag 
was smaller than mine, he would get out of the buggy on 
the way home, run over to a cottonwood clump, and turn 
loose both barrels at dark masses in the branches. He 
usually returned to the buggy with half a dozen or more 
quail, and when we reached home he would displav his 
bag and boast of having beaten me at shooting. 
Allen Kelly. 
The Drum of the Partridge. 
New York, Oct. 20.- — Editor Forest and Stream: Will 
not some of your readers kindly advise in your columns 
whether partridges ever "drum" in the autumn months. 
If they do, is it the old bird or the young one, or both? 
An editor recently cut out for me a reference to the drum- 
ming of partridges, in the Adirondacks, and said,_ with 
much scorn: "Partridges, you know, never drum in the 
fall ! Only in the spring, sir !" 
How about this? Last Sunday, near Stamford, Conn., 
three of us in the woods there heard a partridge drum — ■ 
or did we? Mr. W. J. Long, who resides at Stamford, 
had been invited to our pork-and-beans dinner at the tent 
in the woods on the banks of that fine trout stream. He 
was not present. Can it be that he was concealed out in 
the forest, and had some kind of buzzer that he let off to 
make us think we heard a partridge drumming? Strange 
things happen in Connecticut, and Mr. Long has been 
accused of making birds do unusual stunts. That he was 
responsible for this seeming drumming is further evi- 
denced by the fact that Dr. R. T. Morris, the owner of 
the forest, had told us a dozen times that we would not 
walk ten steps further without "raising" a partridge ; and 
not one rose. 
Further, when a partridge drums, does he beat his own 
breast with his wings, or the stump, log, etc., on which he 
stands, or both? Some of us who have been privileged, 
a few times, to watch Sir Partridge from afar at such an 
interesting juncture, feel pretty sure that at least the first 
four or five slow beats of his wings are against his own 
breast. After that we are not so sure. L. F. Brown, 
