Click photo to enlarge A photo provided by the University of
Virginia Press shows the cover of "The Most Defiant Devil:
William Temple Hornaday and His Controversial Crusade to Save
American Wildlife" (University of Virginia Press), by Gregory J.
Dehler.  Irony alert: The man often credited with saving the
buffalo from extinction began his crusade by killing 20 of the
furry beasts. It had taken five weeks to find even a handful of
buffalo in Montana in the fall of 1886, their numbers down from
the millions to the hundreds after decades of unregulated
hunting for economic gain.  William T. Hornaday wasn't seeking
meat or fur or even trophies—well, not exactly. He was the chief
taxidermist for the U.S. National Museum, a branch of the
Smithsonian Institution, and needed specimens. The hunt led
Hornaday to write a book decrying the buffalo's fate and to help
create preserves. His efforts, and those of others, kept the
buffalo roaming into the new century.  Hornaday came to believe
that the extinction of the buff