THE BUFFALO 
103 
is impossible for any one to distinguish a differ- 
ence. 
The future of the Buffalo depends solely upon 
the owners of the great private game preserves, 
such as that of the late Austin Corbin, and Mr. 
James J. Hill. If the perpetuation of the species 
depended solely upon the efforts possible in zoo- 
logical gardens and parks, within twenty-five 
years the species would become extinct. Even 
in a range of twenty acres, the largest in any zoo- 
logical institution, the Buffalo becomes a slug- 
gish animal, and rapidly deteriorates from the 
vigorous standard of the wild or semi-wild stock. 
In the close confinement of a thirty-acre zoologi- 
cal garden, the loss in physique is still greater. 
Mr. Arthur E. Brown, Superintendent of the 
Philadelphia Zoological Garden, and a very close 
observer, has drawn the writer’s attention to the 
striking difference in size and back outline be- 
tween a Buffalo born on a great range, and an- 
other of the same age born of a line of closely 
confined ancestors. 
Interesting as have been the experiments 
made by Mr. C. J. Jones and others in the cross- 
breeding of Buffaloes and domestic cattle, it is 
now quite time that all such experiments should 
cease. It has been proven conclusively that it is 
impossible to introduce and maintain a tangible 
strain of buffalo blood into the mass of western 
range cattle. This is admitted with great regret, 
but inasmuch as it is absolutely true, the existing 
herds of Buffalo should not be further vitiated 
and degraded by the presence in them of ani- 
mals of impure blood. 
In an adult animal, the presence of domestic 
blood is readily perceived in the lower hump, 
longer tail, shorter pelage on the head, neck, 
shoulders and fore legs, and the longer and more 
slender horns. In the calf under one year of age, 
it is not always possible for even the best judges 
to detect a strain of domestic blood. In the 
year 1900, a male calf was inspected and passed 
by four men who were with good reason consid- 
ered qualified judges of the points of Buffaloes; 
but two years later that animal stood forth un- 
mistakably as a cross-breed, one-quarter domestic. 
In judging Buffaloes, the finest animals are 
those with the greatest height of hump, heaviest 
and longest pelage in front of the armpit, shortest 
tails, and horns curving with the shortest radius. 
If the recent action of the national government 
toward establishing a herd in the Yellowstone 
Park is liberally and intelligently sustained by 
future administrations, it will go far toward per- 
petuating the species for a century. But it 
should be conceded at the beginning that the 
effort can succeed only by giving the animals a 
great area to roam over at will. In addition to 
that herd, however, another should immediately 
be established in the Plains region, in a fenced 
reservation of not less than 100 square miles, with 
choice grazing, water and ravine shelters. It is 
only by such methods that the American people 
can in a small measure atone for the annihila- 
tion of the great herds between 1870 and 1885, 
and the subsequent brutal slaughter by poachers 
of the Yellowstone Park herd of three hundred 
head. 
On March 1, 1903, Dr. Frank Baker com- 
pleted a count of all the pure-blood captive 
Buffaloes alive at that date, with the following 
result : 
Captive Buffaloes: 
In the United States 
In Canada 
In Europe 
969 
41 
109 
1,119 
Wild Buffaloes ( estimated ): 
In the United States 
In Canada 
34 
600 
634 
1,753 
The Musk-Ox. 
The Musk-Ox 1 is an inhabitant of the frozen 
North, the land of snow and ice, of howling 
storms and treeless desolation. In 1901, Com- 
mander Peary killed a specimen within half a 
mile of the most northerly point of land in the 
world, — the northeastern extremity of Greenland. 
How this animal finds food of any kind during 
the dark and terrible arctic winter, is yet one of 
the secrets of Nature. After making all possible 
allowance for the grass, willow and saxifrage 
obtainable by pawing through the snow, and on 
ridge-crests that are swept bare by the blizzards, 
it is still impossible to explain how the Musk- 
Ox herds find sufficient food in winter, not only 
to sustain life, but actually to be well-fed. 
I gaze upon each living Musk-Ox to be seen 
1 O'vi-bos mos-clia’tus. 
