Preventory note of the Extermination of the American Bison. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Abayee in October 2014. The Extermination of the American Bison by William T. Hornaday, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park. Preventory note. It is hoped that the following historical account of the discovery, partial utilization, and almost complete extermination of the Great American Bison may serve to cause the public to fully realize the folly of allowing all our most valuable and interesting American mammals to be wantonly destroyed in the same manner. The wild buffalo is practically gone forever, and in a few more years, when the whitened bones of the last bleaching skeleton shall have been picked up and shipped east for commercial uses, nothing will remain of him save his old well-worn trails along the watercourses, a few museum specimens, and regret for his fate. If his untimely end fails even to point a moral that shall benefit the surviving species of mammals, which are now being slaughtered in like manner, it will be sad indeed. Although Bison Americanus is a true bison, according to scientific classification and not a buffalo, the fact that more than sixty millions of people in this country unite in calling him a buffalo and know him by no other name renders it quite unnecessary for me to apologize for following, in part, a harmless custom which has now become so universal that all the naturalists in the world could not change it if they would. William T. Hornaday End of Prefatory Note Section 1 of The Extermination of the American Bison This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Avae in November 2014 The Extermination of the American Bison by William T. Hornaday Part 1 Life History of the Bison Chapter 1 Discovery of the Species The discovery of the American Bison as first made by Europeans occurred in the menagerie of a heathen king. In the year 1521, when Cortes reached Anna-Wack, the American Bison was seen for the first time by civilized Europeans, if we may be permitted to thus characterize the horde of bloodthirsty plunder seekers who fought their way to the Aztec capital. With a degree of enterprise that marked him as an enlightened monarch, Montezuma maintained, for the instruction of his people, a well-appointed menagerie, of which the historian De Solis wrote as follows 1724 In the second square of the same house were the wild beasts, which were either presents to Montezuma or taken by his hunters in strong cages of timber ranged in good order and undercover. Lions, tigers, bears, and all others of the savage kind which knew Spain produced, among which the greatest rarity was the Mexican bull, a wonderful composition of diverse animals. It has crooked shoulders with a punch on its back like a camel, its flanks dry, its tail large, and its neck covered with hair like a lion. It is cloven-footed, its head armed like that of a ball, which it resembles in fierceness, with no less strength and agility. Thus was the first scene Buffalo described. The nearest locality from whence it could have come was the state of Coahuila, in northern Mexico, between 400 and 500 miles away, and at that time vehicles were unknown to the Aztecs. But for the destruction of the whole mass of the written literature of the Aztecs by the priests of the Spanish conquest, we might now be reveling in historical accounts of the bison, which would make the oldest of our present records seem of comparatively recent date. Nine years after the event referred to above, or in 1530, another Spanish explorer, Alvar Núñez Cabeza, afterwards called Cabeza de Vaca, or in other words, Cattle Cabeza, the prototype of our own distinguished Buffalo Bill, was wrecked on the Gulf Coast, west of the delta of the Mississippi, from whence he wandered westward through what is now the state of Texas. In southeastern Texas he discovered the American bison on his native heath. So far as can be ascertained, this was the earliest discovery of the bison in a wild state, and the description of the species as recorded by the explorer is of historical interest. It is brief and superficial. The unfortunate explorer took very little interest in animated nature, except as it contributed to the sum of his daily food, which was then the all-important subject of his thoughts. He almost starved. This is all he has to say. Cattle come as far as this. I have seen them three times and eaten of their meat. I think they are about the size of those in Spain. They have small horns like those of Morocco, and the hair long and flocky like that of the Marino. Some are light brown, pardillas, and others black. To my judgment the flesh is finer and sweeter than that of this country, Spain. The Indians make blankets of those that are not full-grown, and of the larger they make shoes and bucklers. They come as far as the sea coast of Florida, now Texas, and in the direction from the north and range over a district of more than 400 leagues. In the whole extent of plain over which they roam, the people who live bordering upon it descend and kill them for food, and thus a great many skins are scattered throughout the country. Coronado was the next explorer who penetrated the country of the buffalo, which he accomplished from the west by way of Arizona and New Mexico. He crossed the southern part of the Panhandle of Texas to the edge of what is now the Indian territory and returned through the same region. It was in the year 1542 that he reached the buffalo country and traversed the plains that were full of crook-backed oxen, as the mountain Serena in Spain is of sheep. This is the description of the animal as recorded by one of his followers, Castañada, and translated by W. W. Davis. The first time we encountered the buffalo, all the horses took to flight on seeing them, for they are horrible to decide. They have a broad and short face, eyes, two palms from each other and projecting in such a manner sideways that they can see a pursuer. Their beard is like that of goats and so long that it drags the ground when they lower their head. They have, on the anterior portion of the body, a frizzled hair like sheep's wool. It is very fine upon the crook and sleek like a lion's mane. Their horns are very short and thick and can scarcely be seen through the hair. They always change their hair in May and that this season they really resemble lions. To make it drop more quickly, for they change it as others do their skins, they roll among the brushwood which they find in the ravines. Their tail is very short and terminates in a great tuft. When they run, they carry it in the air like scorpions. When quite young, they are tawny and resemble our calves, but as age increases, they change color and form. Another thing which struck us was that all the old buffaloes that we killed had the left ear cloven while it was entire in the young. We could never discover the reason of this. Their wool is so fine that handsome clothes would certainly be made of it, but it cannot be dyed for a distony red. We were much surprised that sometimes meeting innumerable herds of bulls without a single cow and other herds of cows without bulls. Neither de Soto, Ponce de Leon, Vazquez de Ayon, nor Pamphile de Narvaez ever saw a buffalo for the reason that all their explorations were made south of what was then the habitat of that animal. At the time de Soto made his great exploration from Florida north westward to the Mississippi and into Arkansas, 1539 through 41, he did indeed pass through country in northern Mississippi and Louisiana that was afterward inhabited by the buffalo, but at that time not one was to be found there. Some of his soldiers, however, who were sent into the northern part of Arkansas reported having seen buffalo skins in the possession of the Indians and were told that live buffaloes were to be found five or six leagues north of their farthest point. The earliest discovery of the bison in eastern North America or indeed anywhere north of Coronado's route was made somewhere near Washington, district of Columbia in 1612 by an English navigator named Samuel Argole and narrated as follows. As soon as I had unladen this corn, I set my men to the felling of timber for the building of a frigate which I had left half finished at point Comfort the 19th of March and returned myself with the ship into Pembroke, Potomac, river and so discovered to the head of it which is about 65 leagues into the land and navigable for any ship. And then marching into the country, I found great store of cattle as big as kind of which the Indians that were my guides killed a couple which we found to be very good and hold some meat and are very easy to be killed in regards they are heavy, slow and not so wild as other beasts of the wilderness. It is to be regretted that the narrative of the explorer affords no clue to the precise locality of this interesting discovery but since it is doubtful that the mariner journeyed very far on foot from the head of navigation of the Potomac, it seems highly probable that the first American bison seen by Europeans other than the Spaniards was found within 15 miles or even less of the capital of the United States and possibly within the district of Columbia itself. The first meeting of the white man with the buffalo on the northern boundary of that animals habitat occurred in 1679 when Father Henpin ascended the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes and finally penetrated the great wilderness as far as Western Illinois. The next meeting with the buffalo in the Atlantic slope was in October 1729 by a party of surveyors under Colonel William Bird who were engaged in surveying the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. As the party journeyed up from the coast marking the line which now constitutes the interstate boundary, three buffaloes were seen on Sugar Tree Creek but none of them were killed. On the return journey in November, the bull buffalo was killed on Sugar Tree Creek which is in Halifax Country, Virginia within five miles of Big Buffalo Creek longitude 78 degrees, 40 minutes west and 155 miles from the coast. It was found all alone though buffaloes seldom are. The meat is spoken of as a rarity not met at all on the expedition up. The animal was found in thick words which were thus feelingly described. The woods were thick, great part of this day's journey so that we were forced to scuffle hard to advance seven miles being equal in fatigue to double that distance of clear and open ground. One of the creeks which the party crossed was Christian Buffalo Creek and so named from the frequent tokens we discovered of that American behemoth. In October 1733 on another surveying expedition Colonel Bird's party had the good fortune to kill another buffalo near Sugar Tree Creek which incident is thus described. We pursued our journey through uneven and perplexed woods and in the thickest of them had the fortune to knock down a young buffalo two years old. Providence through this vast animal in our way very seasonably just as our provisions began to fail us. And it was the more welcome too because it was change of diet which of all varieties next to that of bedfellows is the most agreeable. We had lived upon venison and bear till our stomachs loathed them almost as much as the Hebrews of old did their quails. Our butchers were so unhandy at their business that we grew very lank before we could get our dinner. But when it came we found it equal in goodness to the best beef. They made it the longer because they kept sucking the water out of the guts in imitation of the Khartoba Indians upon the belief that it is a great cordial and will even make them drunk or at least very gay. A little later a solitary bull buffalo was found but spared the earliest instance of the kind on record and which had few successors to keep it company. End of section one. Section two of the extermination of the American bison. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eric Shaga. The extermination of the American bison by William T. Hornaday. Part one, chapter two, geographic distribution. The range of the American bison extended over about one third of the entire continent of North America. Starting almost the tide water on the Atlantic coast it extended westward through a vast tract of dense forest across the Agani mountain system to the prairies along Mississippi and southward to the delta of that great stream. Although the Great Plains country of the west was a natural home of the species where it flourished most abundantly it also wandered south across Texas to the burning plains of northeastern Mexico. Westward across the Rocky Mountains into New Mexico, Utah and Idaho. And northward across a vast treeless waste to the bleak and inhospitable shores of the Great Slave Lake itself. It is more than probable that had the bison remained unmolested by man and uninfluenced by him he would eventually have crossed the Sierra Nevadas and the coast range and taken up his abode in the fertile valleys of the Pacific slope. Had the bison remained for a few more centuries in an underserved possession of his range and with liberty to roam at will over the North American continent it is almost certain that several distinctly recognizable varieties would have been produced. The buffalo of the hot regions in the extreme south would have become a short haired animal like the Gower of India and the African buffalo. The individuals inhabiting the extreme north in the vicinity of Great Slave Lake for example would have developed still longer hair and taken on more of the dense hairiness of the musk ox. In the wood or mountain buffalo we already have a distinct foreshadowing of the changes which would have taken place in the individuals which made their permanent residence upon rugged mountains. It would be an easy matter to fill a volume with facts relating to the geographical distribution of bison and Americanus and the dates of its occurrence and disappearance in the multitude of different localities embraced within the immense area it once inhabited. The capricious shiftings of certain sections of the Great Herds, whereby large areas which for many years had been utterly unvisited by buffaloes suddenly became overrun by them, could be followed up indefinitely but to little purpose. In order to avoid wearing the reader with a mass of dates and references the map accompanying this paper has been prepared to show at a glance the approximate dates at which the bison finally disappeared from the various sections of its habitat. In some cases the date given is coincident with the death of the last buffalo known to have been killed in a given state or territory. In others where records are meager the date given is the nearest approximation based on existing records. In the preparation of this map I have drawn liberally from Mr. J. A. Allen's admirable monograph of the American bison in which the author is brought together with great labor and invariable accuracy a vast amount of historical data bearing upon this subject. In this connection I take great pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Professor Allen's work. While it is inexpedient to include here all the facts that might be recorded with reference to discovery, existence and ultimate extinction of the bison in the various portions of its former habitat it is yet worthwhile to sketch briefly the extreme limits of its range. In doing this our starting point will be the Atlantic slope east of the Alganes and the reader will do well to refer to the large map. District of Columbia. There is no indisputable evidence that the bison ever inhabited this precise locality but it is probable that it did. In 1612 Captain Argyle sailed up the Pembroke River to the head of navigation. Mr. Allen believes this was the James River and not the Potomac. And marched inland a few miles where he discovered buffaloes some of which were killed by his Indian guides. If this river was the Potomac and most authorities believe that it was the buffaloes seen by Captain Argyle might easily have been in what is now the District of Columbia. Admitting the existence of a reasonable doubt as to the identity of the Pembroke River of Captain Argyle there is yet another bit of history which fairly establishes the fact that in the early part of the 17th century buffaloes inhabited the banks of the Potomac between this city and the lower falls. In 1624 an English fur trader named Henry Fleet came hither to trade with the Anacostian Indians who then inhabited the present site of the city of Washington and with the tribes of the Upper Potomac. In his journal discovered a few years since in the Lambeth Library of London Fleet gave a quaint description of the city's site as it then appeared. The following is from the explorer's journal. Monday the 25th of June we set sail for the town of Tahoga where we came to anchor to leak shore to the falls.  It aboundeth with all manner of fish. The Indians in one night commonly will catch 30 sturgeons in a place where the river is not above 12 fathoms broad and as for deer, buffaloes, bears, turkeys the wards do swarm with them. The 27th of June I manned my shellop and went up with the flood the tide rising about four feet at this place. We had not rowed above three miles what we might hear the falls to roar about six miles distant. Maryland. There is no evidence that the Bison ever inhabited Maryland except what has already been induced with reference to the District of Columbia. If either of the references quoted may be taken as conclusive proof and I see no reason for disputing either then the fact that the Bison once ranged northward from Virginia to Maryland is fairly established. There is reason to expect that fossil remains of Bison Americanus will yet be found both in Maryland and the District of Columbia and I venture to predict this will yet occur. Virginia. Of the numerous references to the occurrence of the Bison in Virginia it is sufficient to allude to Colonel William Byrd's meetings with buffaloes in 1620 while surveying the southern boundary of the state about 155 miles from the coast is already quoted. The references of the discovery of buffaloes on the eastern side of the Virginia mountains quoted by Mr. Allen from Salmon's presence say to Virginia, page 14, London 1737 in the capture and domestication of buffaloes in 1701 by the Huguenot settlers in Maddickin town which was situated on the James River about 14 miles above Richmond. Apparently buffaloes were more numerous in Virginia than in any other of the Atlantic states. North Carolina. Colonel Byrd's discoveries along the interstate boundary between Virginia and North Carolina fixes the presence of the Bison in the northern part of the latter state at the time of the survey. The following letter to Professor G. Brown Good dated Byrd Ness Post Office, Virginia, August 6th, 1888 from Mr. C. R. Moore furnishes reliable evidence of the presence of the buffalo at another point in North Carolina. In winter of 1857, I was staying for the night at the house of an old gentleman named Houston. I should judge he was 70 then. He lived near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River about four miles from Statesville, North Carolina. I asked him how the Ford got its name. He told me that his grandfather told him that when he was a boy, the buffalo crossed there and that when the rocks in the river were bare they would eat the moss that grew upon them. The point indicated is in longitude 81 degrees west and the date not far from 1750. South Carolina. Professor Allen cites numerous authorities whose observations furnish abundant evidence of the existence of a buffalo in South Carolina during the first half of the 18th century. From these, it is quite evident that in the northwestern half of the state buffaloes were once fairly numerous. Keeney Neclerce on the authority of Calhoun. And we know that some of those who first settled to the Abbeville district in South Carolina in 1756 found the buffalo there. This appears to be the only definite locality in which the presence of the species was recorded. Georgia. The extreme southeastern limit of the buffalo in the United States was found on the coast of Georgia near the mouth of the Altamaha River opposite St. Simon's Island. Mr. Francis Moore in his voyage to Georgia made in 1736 and reported upon in 1744 makes the following observation. The island, St. Simon's, abounds with deer and rabbits. There are no buffalo in it, though there are large herds upon the main. Elsewhere in the document, references made to buffalo hunting by Indians on the mainland near Darien. In James E. Agothorps enumeration, 1733, of the wild beasts of Georgia and South Carolina, he mentions deer, elks, bears, wolves, and buffaloes. Up to the time of Moore's voyage to Georgia, the interior was almost wholly unexplored and it is almost certain that had not the large herds of buffalo upon the mainland existed within a distance of 20 or 30 miles or less from the coast, the colonists would have had no knowledge of them, nor would the Indians have taken up the war path against the whites at Darien under the pretense of hunting buffalo. Alabama. Having established the existence of the bison in northwestern Georgia, almost as far down as the center of the state and in Mississippi down to the neighborhood of the coast, it was naturally expected that a search of historical records would reveal evidence that the bison once inhabited the northern half of Alabama. A most careful search through all the records bearing upon the early history and exploration of Alabama to be found in the Library of Congress failed to discover the slightest reference to the existence of the species in that state or even to the use of buffalo skins by any of the Alabama Indians. While it is possible that such a hiatus really existed in this instance, its existence would be wholly unaccountable. I believe that the buffalo once inhabited the northern half of Alabama, even though history fails to record it. Louisiana and Mississippi. At the beginning of the 18th century, buffaloes were plentiful in southern Mississippi and Louisiana, not only down to the coast itself from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi, but even in the very delts of the Mississippi as the following record shows. In a memoir addressed to Conte Pontchartran, December 10th, 1697, the author, Monsieur de Raymondville, describes the country around the mouth in Mississippi, now the state of Louisiana, and further says, a great abundance of wild cattle are also found there, which might be domesticated by rearing up the young calves. Whether these animals were buffaloes might be considered an open question, but for the following additional information, which affords positive evidence. The trade in furs and peltry would be immensely valuable and exceedingly profitable. We could also draw from then to great quantity of buffalo hides every year as the plains were filled with the animals. In the same volume, page 47, in a document entitled, Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 1722 by Monsieur Pénico, the author records the presence of buffalo on the Gulf Coast on the banks of the Bay of St. Louis as follows. The next day we left P. Island and passed through the little riglets, which led into the sea about three leagues from the Bay of St. Louis. We encamped at the entrance of the bay near a fountain of water that flows from the hills and which was called at this time, Belle Fountain. We hunted during several days upon the coast of this bay and filled our boats with the meat of the deer, buffaloes and other wild game which we had killed and carried it to the fort, Biloxi. The occurrence of buffalo at Natchez is recorded and also, page 115, at the mouth of Red River as follows. We ascended the Mississippi to Passman Choc where we killed 15 buffaloes. The next day we landed again and killed eight more buffaloes and this many deer. The presence of the buffalo in the delts of the Mississippi was observed and recorded by the Butterville in 1699. According to Claiborne, the Choc Taws have an interesting tradition in regard to the disappearance of the buffalo from the Mississippi. It relates that during the early part of the 18th century, a great drought occurred which was particularly severe in the Prairie region. For three years, not a drop of rain fell. The Naeubian Tom Bigby rivers dried up and the forest perished. The Elkin Buffalo, which up to that time had been numerous, all migrated to the country beyond the Mississippi and never returned. Texas. You will be remembered that it was in southeastern Texas, in all probability within 50 miles of the present city of Houston, that the earliest discovery of the American Bison on its native heath was made in 1530 by Cabeza de Vaca, a half-starved, half-naked and holy, wretched Spaniard, almost the only surviving member of the celebrated expedition which burned its chips behind it. And speaking of the buffalo in Texas at the earliest periods of which we have any historical record, Professor Allen says, these were also found in immense herds on the coast of Texas, the Bay of St. Bernard, Madagorda Bay, and on the lower part of the Colorado, Rio Grande, according to some authorities, by LaSalle in 1685, then some northwards across the Colorado, Brazos, and Trinity rivers. Joe Tell says that when it led to 28 degrees, 51, the site of abundance of goats and bullocks differing in shape from ours and running along the coast, heightened our earnestness to be ashore. They afterwards landed in St. Louis Bay, now called Madagorda Bay, where they found buffalos and such numbers on the Colorado River that they called it La Riviera Bouff. According to Professor Allen, the buffalo did not inhabit the coast of Texas each of the mouth of the Brazos River. It is a curious coincidence that the state of Texas, wherein the earliest discoveries and observations upon the bison were made, should also now furnish a temporary shelter for one of the last remnants of the Great Heard. Mexico. In regard to the existence of a buffalo south of the Rio Grande in old Mexico, there appears to be but one authority on record, Dr. Berlandier, who at the time of his death left in MS a work on the mammals of Mexico. At one time, this MS was in the Smithsonian Institution, but it is there no longer, nor is its fate even ascertainable. It is probable that it was burned in the fire that destroyed a portion of the institution in 1865. Fortunately, Professor Allen obtained and published in his monograph, in French, a copy of that portion of Dr. Berlandier's work relating to the presence of a bison in Mexico, of which the following is a translation. In Mexico, when the Spaniards ever greedy for riches pushed their explorations to the north and northeast, it was not long before they met with the buffalo. In 1602, the Franciscan monks who discovered Nuevo León encountered in the neighborhood of Monterey numerous herds of these quadrupeds. They were also distributed in Nouvelle Biscayé, states of Chihuahua and Durango, and they sometimes advanced to the extreme south of that country. In the 18th century, they concentrated more and more toward the north, but still remained very abundant in the neighborhood of the province of Bexar. At the commencement of the 19th century, we see them recede gradually in the interior of the country to such an extent that they become day by day scarcer and scarcer about the settlements. Now, it is not in their periodical migrations that we meet them near Bexar. Every year in the spring, in April or May, they advanced toward the north to return again to the southern regions in September and October. The exact limits of these annual migrations are unknown. It is, however, probable that in the north they never go beyond the banks of the Rio Bravo, at least in the states of Coahuila and Texas. Toward the north, not being checked by the currents in Missouri, they progress even as far as Michigan, and they are found in summer in the territories and interior states of the United States of North America. The route which these animals follow in their migrations occupies a width of several miles and becomes so marked that, besides the verdu or destroyed, one would believe the fields had been covered with manure. These migrations are not general for certain bands do not seem to follow the general mass of their kin, but remain stationary throughout the whole year on the prairies covered with a rich vegetation on the banks of the Rio de Guadalupe and the Rio Colorado of Texas. Not far from the shores of the Gulf to the east of the colony of San Felipe, precisely at the same spot where LaSalle and his traveling companions saw them 200 years before. The revered father, Damien Monsonet, saw them also as in our days on the shores of Texas in regions which have since been covered with habitations, habitats, and villages of new colonists and from once they have disappeared since 1828. From the observations made on this subject, we may conclude that the buffalo inhabited the temperate zone of the new world and that they inhabited it at all times. In the north they never advanced to be on the 48th or 58th degree of latitude, and in the south, although they may have reached as low as the 25th degree, they scarcely passed beyond the 27th or 28th degree, north latitude, at least in the inhabited and known portions of the country. New Mexico, in 1542 Coronado, while on its celebrated march, met with the vast herds of buffalo on the Upper Pecos River, since which the presence of the species in the valley of the Pecos has been well known. In describing the journey of Spejo down the Pecos River in the year 1584, Davis says in Spanish conquest of New Mexico, page 260, they passed down a river they called Rio de las Bacas, or the River of Oxen, the river Pecos and the same cow river that Baca describes, says Professor Allen, and was so named because of the great number of buffaloes that fed upon its banks. They traveled down this river the distance of 120 leagues, all the way passing through great herds of buffaloes. Professor Allen locates the western boundary of the buffalo in New Mexico, even as far west as the western side of the Rio Grande del Norte, Utah. It is well known that buffaloes, though in very small numbers, once inhabited northeastern Utah, and that a few were killed by the Mormon settlers prior to 1840 in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake. In the museum at Salt Lake City, Baca was shown a very ancient mounted head of a buffalo bull, which was said to have been killed in the Salt Lake Valley. It is doubtful that such was really fact. There is no evidence that the bison ever inhabited the southwestern half of Utah, and considering the great sterility of the territory as a whole previous to its development by irrigation, it is surprising that any buffalo in his senses would ever set foot in it at all. Idaho, the former range of the bison probably embraced the whole of Idaho. Fremont states that in the spring of 1824, the buffalo were spread in immense numbers over the Green River and Bear River valleys, and through all the country lying between the Colorado or Green River of the Gulf of California, and Lewis's Fork of the Columbia River, the meridian of Fort Hall, then forming the western limit of their range. In JK Townsend's narrative of a journey across the Rocky Mountains, in 1834, he records the occurrence of herds near the Milade and Boisean Salmon Rivers, 10 days journey, 200 miles west of Fort Hall. The buffalo then remained for many years in that country, and frequently moved down the valley of the Columbia on both sides of the river as far as the fishing falls. Below this point, they never descended in any numbers. About 1834 or 1835, they began to diminish very rapidly and continued to decrease until 1838 or 1840, when, when the country we have just described, they entirely abandoned all the waters of the Pacific North of Lewis Fork of the Columbia, now called the Snake River. At that time, the Flathead Indians were in the habit of finding their buffalo on the heads of the Salmon River and other streams of the Columbia, Oregon. The only evidence on record of the occurrence of bison in Oregon is of following from Professor Allen's memoir. Respecting its former occurrence in eastern Oregon, Professor O. C. Marsh, underdate of New Haven, of February 7th, 1875, writes me as follows. The most western point at which I myself have observed remains the buffalo was at 187 on Willow Creek, eastern Oregon, among the foothills of the eastern side of the Blue Mountains. This is about latitude 44 degrees. The bones were perfectly characteristic, although nearly decomposed. The remains must have been those of a solitary and very enterprising straggler. The Northwest Territories, British. At two or three points only did the buffaloes of the British possessions cross the Rocky Mountains barrier toward British Columbia. One was the path through which the Canadian Pacific Railway now runs, 200 miles north of the international boundary. According to Dr. Richardson, the number of buffaloes which crossed the mountains at that point were sufficiently noticeable to constitute a feature of the fauna on the western side of the range. It is said that buffaloes also crossed by way of the Kootenai Pass, which is only a few miles north of the boundary line, but the number which did so must have been very small. As might be expected from the character of the country, the favorite range of the bison in British America was the northern extension of the Great Pastor region lying between the Missouri River and Great Slave Lake. The most northerly occurrence of the bison is recorded as an observation of Franklin in 1820 at Slave Point and a north side of the Great Slave Lake. A few frequent slave point on the north side of the lake, but this is the most northern situation in which they were observed by Captain Franklin's party. Dr. Richardson defined the eastern boundary of the bison's range in British America as follows. They do not frequent any of the districts formed of primitive rocks and the limits of their range to the eastward within the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, maybe correctly marked on a map by a line commencing in a longitude 97 degrees on the Red River, which flows into the south end of Lake Winnipeg, crossing the Saskatchewan toward the westward of the Baskian Hill and running thence by the Athapascao to the east end of Great Slave Lake. Their migrations westward were formerly limited to the Rocky Mountain Range and they are still unknown in New Caledonia and on the shores of the Pacific to the north of Columbia River, but of late years they have found out a passage across the mountains near the sources of the Saskatchewan and their numbers to the westward are annually increasing. Great Slave Lake, that the Buffalo inhabited, the southern shore of this lake is late 1871 as well established by the following letter from Mr. E. W. Nelson to Mr. J. A. Allen under date of July 11th, 1877. I have met here in St. Michael's, Alaska, two gentlemen who crossed the mountains from British Columbia and came to Fort Yukon through British America, from whom I have derived some information about the Buffalo, Briesan Americanus, which will be of interest to you. These gentlemen descended the Peace River and on about the 118th degree of longitude made a portage to Hay River directly north. On this portage they saw thousands of Buffalo skulls and old trails in some instances two or three feet deep, leading east and west. They wintered on Hay River near its entrance into Great Slave Lake and here found the Buffalo still common, occupying a restricted territory along the southern border of the lake. This was in 1871. They made inquiry concerning a large number of skulls seen by them on the portage and learned that about 50 years before, snow fell on the estimated depth of 14 feet and so enveloped the animals that they perished by the thousands. It is asserted that these buffaloes are larger than those of the plains. Minnesota and Wisconsin. A line drawn from Winnipeg, Chicago, curving slightly to the eastward and the middle portion will very nearly define the eastern boundary of the Buffalo's range in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Illinois and Indiana. The whole of these two states were formerly inhabited by the Buffalo, the fertile prairies of Illinois being particularly suited to their needs. It is doubtful whether the range of the species extended north of the northern boundary of Indiana, but since southern Michigan was as well adapted to their support as Ohio or Indiana, their absence from that state must have been due more to accident and design. Ohio. The southern shore of Lake Erie forms part of the northern boundary of the bison's range in the eastern United States. The hometown explored Lake Erie in 1687 and thus describes its southern shore. I cannot express what quantities of deer and turkeys are to be found in these woods and in the vast meads that lie upon the south side of the lake. At the bottom of the lake, we find bees upon the banks of a pleasant two rivers that disembark into it without cataracts or rapid currents. It disappears at the southern shore of Lake Erie forms part of the northern boundary of the buffalo's range in the eastern United States. New York. In regard to the presence of the bison in any portion of the state of New York, Professor Allen considers the evidence as fairly conclusive that it once existed in western New York, not only in the city of the eastern end of Lake Erie, where now stands the city of Buffalo at the mouth of a large creek by the same name, but also on the shore of Lake Ontario, probably in Orleans County. In his monograph of the American Bison's, page 107, he gives a following testimony and conclusions on this point. The occurrence of a stream in western New York called Buffalo Creek, which empties at the eastern end of Lake Erie, is commonly viewed as traditional evidence of its occurrence at this point, but positive testimony to this effect has thus far escaped me. This locality, if it actually came so far eastward, must have formed the eastern limits of its range along the lake. I have found highly questionable allusions of the occurrence of buffaloes along the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Keating, on the authority of Calhoun, however, has cited a passage of Morton's New English Canaan as proof of their former existence in the neighborhood of this lake. Morton's statement is based on Indian reports and the context gives sufficient evidence of the general vagueness of his knowledge of the region of which he was speaking. The passage, printed in 1637, is as follows. They, the Indians, have also made descriptions of great herds of well-grown beasts that live about the parts of this lake, Iroquois, such as the Christian world, until this discovery hath not been made acquainted with. These beasts are of the bigness of a cow, their flesh being very good food, their hides good leather, their fleece is very useful, being a kind of wool is fine almost as the wall of the beaver, and the savages do make garments thereof. It is 10 years since the first relation of these things came to the ears of the English. The beast, to which illusion is here made, says Professor Allen, is unquestionably the buffalo, but the locality of Lake Iroquois is not easily settled. Culhoun regards it, and probably correctly, as identical with Lake Ontario. The extreme northeastern limit of the former range of the buffalo seems to have been, as above stated, in western New York, near the eastern end of Lake Erie. That it probably ranged thus far there is fair evidence. Pennsylvania, from the eastern end of Lake Erie, the boundary of the Bison's habitat extends south into western Pennsylvania, to a marsh called Buffalo Swamp, on a map published by Peter Com in 1771. Professor Allen says it, is indicated as situated between the Allegheny River and the west branch of the Susciana, near the heads of the Licking and Tobies Creeks, apparently the stream is now called Oil Creek and Clarion Creek. In this region there were at one time thousands of buffaloes. While there is not at hand any positive evidence that buffaloeven are inhabited that southwestern portion of Pennsylvania, its presence in the locality mentioned above, and in West Virginia generally, on the south, furnishes sufficient reason for extending the boundary so as to include the southwestern portion of the state and connect with our starting point, the District of Columbia. End of section two. Section three of the extermination of the American Bison. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eric Shaker. The Extermination of the American Bison by William T. Hornaday. Part one, chapter three, Abundance. Of all the quadrupeds that have lived upon the earth, probably no other species has ever marshaled such innumerable hosts as those of the American Bison. It would have been as easy to count or to estimate the number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number of buffaloes living at any given time during the history of the species previous to 1870. Even in South Central Africa, which has always been exceedingly prolific in great herds of game, it is probable that all its quadrupeds taken together on an equal area would never have more than equal the total number of buffalo in this country 40 years ago. To an African hunter, such a statement may seem incredible, but it appears to be fully warranted by the literature of both branches of the subject. Not only did the buffalo formerly range eastward, far into the forest regions of Western New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, but in some places it was so abundant as to cause remark. In Mr. J. A. Allen's valuable monograph appear a great number of interesting historical references on the subject, as indeed to every other relating to the buffalo, a few of which I will take the liberty of quoting. In the vicinity of the spot where the town of Clarion now stands in Northwestern Pennsylvania, Mr. Thomas Ash relates that one of the first settlers built his log cabin near Assault Spring, which was visited by buffaloes in such numbers that he supposed there could not have been less than 2,000 in the neighborhood of the spring. During the first years of his residence there, the buffaloes came in droves of about 300 each. Of the blue licks in Kentucky, Mr. John Philson thus wrote in 1784, The amazing herds of buffalo, which resort thither by their size and number, fill the traveler with amazement and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they have made from all quarters, as if leading to some populous city. The vast space of land around these springs desolated as if by a ravaging enemy and hills reduced to plains, for the land near these springs is chiefly hilly. I have heard a hunter assert he saw above 1,000 buffaloes at the blue licks at once, so numerous where they before the first settlers had wantonly sported away their lives. Colonel Daniel Boone declared of the Red River region in Kentucky, the buffaloes were more frequent than I have seen cattle in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane or cropping the herbage of those extensive plains, fearless because ignorant of the violence of man. Sometimes we saw hundreds in a drove and the numbers about the salt springs were amazing. According to Ramsey, where Nashville now stands, in 1770 there were immense numbers of buffalo and other wild game. The country was crowded with them, their bellowing sounded from the hills and forest. Daniel Boone found vast herds of buffalo grazing in the valleys of East Tennessee between the spurs of the Cumberland Mountains. Marquette declared that the prairies along the Illinois River were covered with buffalo. Father Hennepin in writing of Northern Illinois between Chicago and the Illinois River asserted that there must be an innumerable quantity of wild bulls in that country since the earth is covered with their horns. They follow one another so that you may see a drove of them for above a league together. Their ways are as beaten as our great roads and no herb grows therein. Judged by ordinary standards of comparison, the early pioneers of the last century thought buffalo were abundant in the localities mentioned above. But the herds which lived east of the Mississippi were comparatively only mere stragglers from the innumerable mass which covered the great Western pasture region from Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains and from the Rio Grande to Great Slave Lake. The town of Kearney in south central Nebraska may fairly be considered the geographical center of the distribution of the species as it originally existed. But ever since 1800 and until a few years ago the center of the population has been in the Black Hills of southwestern Dakota. Between the Rocky Mountains and the states lying along the Mississippi River on the west from Minnesota to Louisiana, the whole country was one vast buffalo range inhabited by millions of buffaloes. One could fill a volume with the records of plainsmen and pioneers who penetrated across that vast region between 1800 and 1870 and were in turn surprised, astounded and frequently dismayed. By the tens of thousands of buffaloes they observed avoided or escaped from. They lived and moved as no other quadrupeds ever have in great multitudes like grand armies and review covering scores of square miles at once. They were once so numerous they frequently stopped boats in the rivers, threatened to overwhelm travelers on the plains and in later years derail locomotives and cars until railway engineers learned by experience the wisdom of stopping their trains whatever there were buffaloes crossing the track. On this feature of the buffalo's life history a few detailed observations may be of value. Near the mouth of the White River in southwestern Dakota Lewis and Clark saw in 1806 a herd of buffalo which caused them to make the following record in their journal. These last animals, buffaloes, are now so numerous that from an eminence we discovered more than we had ever seen before at one time and if it be not impossible to calculate the moving multitude which darkened the whole plains we are convinced that 20,000 would be no exaggeration near the mouth of the Yellowstone on their way down the Missouri a previous record had been made of a meeting. The buffalo now appear in vast numbers. A herd happened to be on their way across the river, the Missouri. Such was the multitude of these animals that although the river including an island over which they passed was a mile in length the herd stretched as thick as they could swim completely from one side to the other and the party was obliged to stop for an hour. They consoled themselves with the delay by killing four of the herd and then proceeded to let the distance of 45 miles they halted on an island below which two other herds of buffalo as numerous as the first soon crossed the river. Perhaps the most vivid picture ever afforded of the former abundance of buffalo is given by Colonel R.I. Dodge in his Plains of the Great West. It is well worth reproducing entire. In May, 1871, I drove in a light wagon from Old Fort Zara to Fort Larnad on the Arkansas 34 miles. At least 25 miles of this distance was through one immense herd composed of countless smaller herds of buffalo than on their journey north. The road ran along the broad level bottom or valley of the river. The whole country appeared one great mass of buffalo moving slowly to the northward and it was only when actually among them that it could be ascertained that the apparently solid mass was an agglomeration of innumerable smaller herds of from 50 to 200 animals separated from the surrounding herds by greater or less space but still separated. The herds in the valley sullenly got out of my way and turning stared stupidly at me, sometimes at only a few yards distance. When I reached a point where the hills were no longer more than a mile from the road, the buffalo on the hills seeing an unusual object in their rear turned, stared an instant, then started at full speed directly towards me stampeding and bringing with them the numberless herds through which they passed and pouring down upon me all the herds no longer separated but one immense compact mass of plunging animals mad with fright and as irresistible as an avalanche. The situation was by no means pleasant.  I waited until the front of the mass was within 50 yards when a few well-directed shots from my rifle split the herd and sent it pouring off in two streams to my right and left. When all had passed me, they stopped. Apparently perfectly satisfied though thousands were yet within reach of my rifle and many within less than 100 yards. Descending to fire again, I sent my servant to cut out the tongues of the fallen. This occurred so frequently within the next 10 miles that when I arrived at Fort Larnad, I had 26 tongues in my wagon, representing the greatest number of buffalo that my conscience can reproach me for having murdered on any single day. I was not hunting, wanted no meat, and would not voluntarily have fired at those herds. I killed only in self-preservation and fired almost every shot from the wagon. At my request, Colonel Dodge has kindly furnished me a careful estimate upon which to base the calculation of the number of buffaloes in that great herd, and the result is very interesting. In a private letter dated September 21st, 1887, he writes as follows. The great herd on the Arkansas, through which I passed, could not have averaged at rest over 15 or 20 individuals to the acre, but was, from my own observation, not less than 25 miles wide, and from reports of hunters and others, it was about five days in passing a given point, or not less than 50 miles deep. From the top of Pawnee Rock, I could see from six to 10 miles in almost every direction. This whole vast space was covered with buffalo, looking at a distance like one compact mass, the visual angle not permitting the ground to be seen. I have seen such a sight a great number of times, but never on so large a scale. That was the last of the great herds. With these figures before us, it is not difficult to make a calculation that will be somewhere near the truth of the number of buffaloes actually seen in one day by Colonel Dodge on the Arkansas River during that memorable drive, and also of the number of head in the entire herd. According to his recorded observation, the herd extended along the river for a distance of 25 miles, which was in reality the width of the vast procession that was moving north, and back from the road as far as the eye could reach on both sides. It is making a low estimate to consider the extent of the visible ground at one mile on either side. This gives a strip of country two miles wide by 25 long or a total of 50 square miles covered with buffalo, averaging from 15 to 20 to the acre, taking the lesser number in order to be below the truth rather than above it. We find that the number actually seen on that day by Colonel Dodge was in the neighborhood of 480,000, not counting the additional number taken in at the view from the top of Pawnee Rock, which, if added, would easily bring the number up to around half million. If the advancing multitude had been at all points 50 miles in length, as it was known to have been in some places at least by 25 miles in width, and still averaged 15 head to the acre of ground, it would have contained the enormous number of 12 million head. But judging from the general principles governing such migrations, it is almost certain that the moving mass advanced in the shape of a wedge, which would make it necessary to deduct about two-thirds from the grand total, which would leave 4 million as our estimate of the actual numbers of buffaloes in this great herd, which I believe is more likely to be below the truth than above it. No wonder that the men of the west of those days, both white and red, thought it would be impossible to exterminate such a mighty multitude. The Indians of some tribes believed that the buffaloes issued from the earth continually, and that the supply was necessarily inexhaustible. In yet in four short years, the southern herd was almost totally annihilated. With such a lesson before our eyes, confirmed in every detail by living testimony, who will dare to say that there will be an elk, moose, caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, antelope, or black-tailed deer left alive in the United States in a wild state 50 years from this date, I, or even 25. Mr. William Blackmore contributes the following testimony to the abundance of buffalo in Kansas. In the autumn of 1868, whilst crossing the plains on the Kansas-Pacific Railroad, for a distance of upwards of 120 miles between Ellsworth and Sheridan, we passed through an almost unbroken herd of buffalo. The plains were blackened with them, and more than once the train had to stop to allow unusually large herds to pass. In 1872, whilst on a scout for about a hundred miles south of Fort Dodge, the Indian Territory, we were never out of sight of the buffalo. 20 years hence, when not even a bone or buffalo chip remains above ground throughout the west to mark the presence of the buffalo, it may be difficult for people to believe that these animals ever existed in such numbers as to contribute not only a serious annoyance, but often a very dangerous menace to wagon travel across the plains, and also to stop railway trains and even throw them off the track. The like has probably never occurred before in any country, and most assuredly never will again, if the present rate of large game destruction all over the world can be taken as a foreshadowing of the future. In this connection, the following additional testimony from Colonel Dodge is of interest. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad was then, in 1871 to 72, in process of construction, and nowhere could the peculiarity of the buffalo of which I am speaking be better studied than from its trains. If a herd was on the north side of the track, it would stand stupidly gazing and without a symptom of alarm, although the locomotive passed within 100 yards. If on the south side of the track, even though at a distance of one or two miles from it, the passage of a train set the whole herd in the wildest commotion. At full speed and utterly regardless of the consequences, it would make for the track on its line of retreat. If the train happened not to be in its path, it crossed the track and stopped, satisfied. If the train was in its way, each individual buffalo went at it with the desperation of despair, plunging against or between locomotive and cars, just as its blind madness chanced to direct it. Numbers were killed, but numbers still pressed on to stop and stare as soon as the obstacle had passed. After having trains thrown off the track twice in one week, conductors learned to have a very decided respect for the idiosyncrasies of the buffalo. And when there was a possibility of striking a herd on the rampage for the north side of the track, the train was slowed up and sometimes stopped entirely. The accompanying illustration, reproduced from Plains of the Great West by the kind permission of the author, is in one sense ocular proof that collisions between railway trains and vast herds of buffaloes were so numerous that they formed a proper subject for illustration. In regard to the stoppage of trains and derailment of locomotives by buffaloes, Colonel Dodge makes the following allusion in the private letter already referred to. There are at least 100 reliable railroad men now employed on the Atchison-Tepica and Santa Fe Railroad who were witnesses of, and sometimes sufferers from, the wild rushes of buffaloes as described on page 121 of my book. I was at the time stationed at Fort Dodge and I was personally cognizant of several of these accidents. The following from the ever pleasing pan of Mr. Ketlin is of decided interest in this connection. In one instance, near the mouth of White River, we met the most immense herd crossing the Missouri River in Dakota and from an imprudence got our boat into imminent danger amongst them from which we were highly delighted to make our escape. It was in the midst of the running season and we had heard the roaring, as it is called, of the herd when we were several miles from them. When we came in sight, we were actually terrified at the immense numbers that were streaming down the green hills on one side of the river and galloping up and over the bluffs on the other. The river was filled and in parts blackened with their heads and horns as they were swimming about, following up their objects and making desperate battle whilst they were swimming. I declared it imprudent for our canoe to be dodging amongst them and ran it ashore for a few hours, where we laid waiting for the opportunity of seeing the river clear, but we waited in vain. Their numbers, however, got somewhat diminished at last and we pushed off and successfully made our way amongst them. From the immense numbers that had passed the river at that place, they had torn down the prairie bank of 15 feet in height, so as to form a sort of road or landing place where they all in succession clambered up. Many in their turmoil had been wafted below this landing and unable to regain it against the swiftness of the current, had fastened themselves along in crowds, hugging close to the high bank under which they were standing. As we were drifting by these and supposing ourselves out of danger, I drew up my rifle and shot one of them in the head, which tumbled into the water and brought with him a hundred others, which plunged in and in a moment they were swimming about our canoe, placing it in great danger. No attack was made upon us and in the confusion the poor beast knew not, perhaps, that the enemy was amongst them, but we were liable to be sunk by them as they were furiously hooking and climbing onto each other. I rose in my canoe and by my gestures and looting kept them from coming in contact with us until we were out of their reach. End of Section 3. Section 4 of The Extermination of the American Bison. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Maria Casper. The Extermination of the American Bison by William T. Hornaday. Part 1. Chapter 4. Character of the Species. 1. The Buffaloes rank amongst ruminants. With the American people and through them all others, familiarity with the buffalo has bred contempt. The incredible numbers in which the animals of this species formerly existed made their slaughter an easy matter, so much so that the hunters and frontiersmen who accomplished their destruction have handed down to us a contemptuous opinion of the size, character, and general presence of the bison. And how could it be otherwise than that a man who could find it in his heart to murder a majestic bull bison for a hide worth only a dollar should form a one-dollar estimate of the grandest ruminant that ever trod the earth. Men who butcher African elephants for the sake of their ivory also entertain a similar estimate of their victims. With an acquaintance which includes fine living examples of all the larger ruminants of the world, except the musk ox and the European bison, I am sure that the American bison is the grandest of them all. His only rivals for the kingship are the Indian bison, or Gaur, boss Gauras of southern India, and the aurochs, or European bison, both of which really surpass him in height, if not in actual bulk also. The aurochs is taller and possesses a larger pelvis and heavier, stronger hindquarters, but his body is decidedly smaller in all its proportions, which gives him a lean and leggy look. The hair on the head, neck, and four quarters of the aurochs is not nearly so long or luxuriant as on the same parts of the American bison. This covering greatly magnifies the actual bulk of the latter animal. Clothe the aurochs with the same wonderful pellage of our buffalo, give him the same enormous chest and body, and the result would be a magnificent bovine monster who would indeed stand without a rival. But when first-class types of the two species are placed side by side, it seems to me that bison Americanus will easily rank his European rival. The gaur has no long hair upon any part of his body or head. What little hair he has is very short and thin, his hindquarters being almost naked. I have seen hundreds of these animals at short range and have killed and skinned several very fine specimens, one of which stood five feet 10 inches in height at the shoulders. But despite his larger bulk, his appearance is not nearly so striking and impressive as that of the male American bison. He seems like a huge ox running wild. The magnificent dark brown frontlet and beard of the buffalo, the shaggy coat of hair upon the neck, hump and shoulders, terminating at the knees in a thick mass of luxuriant black locks. To say nothing of the dense coat of finer fur on the body and hindquarters, give to our species not only an apparent height equal to that of the gaur, but a grandeur and nobility of presence which are beyond all comparison amongst ruminants. The slightly larger bulk of the gaur is of little significance in a comparison of the two species. For if size alone is to turn the scale, we must admit that a 500 pound lioness with no mane whatever is a more majestic looking animal than a 450 pound lion with a mane which has earned him the title of King of Beasts. Two, change of form in captivity. By a combination of unfortunate circumstances the American bison is destined to go down to posterity shorn of the honor which is his due and appreciated at only half his worth. The hunters who slew him were from the very beginning so absorbed in the scramble for spoils that they had no time to measure or weigh him nor even to notice the majesty of his personal appearance on his native heath. In captivity he fails to develop as finely as in his wild state and with the loss of his liberty he becomes a tame looking animal. He gets fat and short bodied and the lack of vigorous and constant exercise prevents the development of bone and muscle which made the prairie animal what he was. From observations made upon buffaloes that have been reared in captivity I am firmly convinced that confinement and semi-domestication are destined to affect striking changes in the form of bison Americanus. While this is to be expected to a certain extent with most large species the changes promise to be most conspicuous in the buffalo. The most striking change is in the body between the hips and the shoulders. As before remarked it becomes astonishingly short and rotund and through liberal feeding and total lack of exercise the muscles of the shoulders and hindquarters especially the latter are but feebly developed. The most striking example of the change of form in the captive buffalo is the cow in the Central Park Menagerie, New York. Although this animal is fully adult and has given birth to three fine calves she is small, astonishingly short-bodied and in comparison with the magnificently developed cows taken in 1886 by the writer in Montana she seems almost like an animal of another species. Both the live buffaloes in the National Museum collection of living animals are developing the same shortness of body and lack of muscle and when they attain their full growth will but poorly resemble the splendid proportions of the wild specimens in the museum-mounted group each of which has been mounted from a most careful and elaborate series of post-mortem measurements. It may fairly be considered, however, that the specimens taken by the Smithsonian expedition were in every way more perfect representatives of the species than have usually been taken in times past for the simple reason that on account of the muscle they had developed in the numerous chases they had survived and the total absence of the fat which once formed such a prominent feature of the animal they were of finer form, more active habit and keener intelligence than buffaloes possessed when they were so numerous. Out of the millions which once composed the great northern herd those represented the survival of the fittest and their existence at that time was chiefly due to the keenness of their senses and their splendid muscular powers in speed and endurance. Under such conditions it is only natural that animals of the highest class should be developed. On the other hand, captivity reverses all these conditions while yielding an equally abundant food supply. In no feature is the change from natural conditions to captivity more easily noticeable than in the eye. In the wild buffalo the eye is always deeply set well protected by the edge of the bony orbit and perfect in form and expression. The lids are firmly drawn around the ball the opening is so small that the white portion of the eyeball is entirely covered and the whole form and appearance of the organ is as shapely and as pleasing in expression as the eye of a deer. In the captive the various muscles which support and control the eyeball seem to relax and thicken and the ball protrudes far beyond its normal plane showing a circle of white all around the iris and bulging out in a most unnatural way. I do not mean to assert that this is common in captive buffaloes generally but I have observed it to be disagreeably conspicuous in many. Another change which takes place in the form of the captive buffalo is an arching of the back in the middle which has a tendency to make the hump look lower at the shoulders and visibly alters the outline of the back. This tendency to hump up the back is very noticeable in domestic cattle and horses during rainy weather. While a buffalo on his native heath would seldom assume such an attitude of dejection and misery, in captivity especially if it be anything like close confinement it is often to be observed and I fear will eventually become a permanent habit. Indeed I think it may be confidently predicted that the time will come when naturalists who have never seen a wild buffalo will compare the specimens composing the National Museum Group with the living representatives to be seen in captivity and assert that the former are exaggerations in both form and size. 3. Mounted Specimens in Museums Of the stuffed specimens to be found in museums all that I have ever seen outside of the National Museum and even those within that institution up to 1886 were stuffed in reality as well as in name.  It is impossible for any taxidermist to stuff a buffalo skin with loose materials and produce a specimen which fitly represents the species. The proper height and form of the animal can be secured and retained only by the construction of a mannequin or statue to carry the skin. In view of this fact, which surely must be apparent to even the most casual observer, it is to be earnestly hoped that here no one in authority will ever consent to mount or have mounted a valuable skin of a bison in any other way than over a properly constructed mannequin. 4. The Calf The breeding season of the buffalo is from the 1st of July to the 1st of October. The young cow does not breed until she is three years old and although two calves are sometimes produced at a birth, one is the usual number. The calves are born in April, May and June and sometimes though rarely as late as the middle of August. The calf follows its mother until it is a year old or even older. In May 1886 the Smithsonian expedition captured a calf alive, which had been abandoned by its mother because it could not keep up with her. The little creature was apparently between two and three weeks old and was therefore born about May 1st. Unlike the young of nearly all other Bovidai, the buffalo calf during the first months of its existence is clad with hair of a totally different color from that which covers him during the remainder of his life. His pellage is a luxuriant growth of rather long wavy hair of a uniform brownish-yellow or sandy color, cinnamon or yellow ochre with a shade of Indian yellow, all over the head, body and tail, in striking contrast with the darker colors of the older animals. On the lower half of the leg it is lighter, shorter and straight. On the shoulders and hump the hair is longer than on the other portions, being one and a half inches in length, more wavy, and already arranges itself in the tufts or small bunches so characteristic in the adult animal. On the extremity of the muzzle, including the chin, the hair is very short, straight, and as light in color as the lower portions of the leg. Starting on the top of the nose, an inch behind the nostrils, and forming a division between the light yellowish muzzle and the more reddish hair on the remainder of the head, there is an irregular band of dark straight hair, which extends down past the corner of the mouth to a point just back of the chin where it unites. From the chin backward, the dark band increases in breadth and intensity and continues back halfway to the angle of the jaw. At that point begins a sort of under-main of wavy, dark brown hair, nearly three inches long, and extends back along the median line of the throat to a point between the four legs where it abruptly terminates. At that point begins a sort of under-main. From the back of the head, another streak of dark hair extends backward along the top of the neck, over the hump, and down to the lumbar region where it fades out entirely. These two dark bands are in sharp contrast to the light sandy hair adjoining. The tail is densely haired. The tuft on the end is quite luxuriant and shows a center of darker hair. The hair on the inside of the ear is dark, but that on the outside is sandy. The naked portion of the nose is light Van Dyke brown, with a pinkish tinge, and the edge of the eyelid the same. The iris is dark brown. The horn, at three months, is about one inch in length, and is a mere little black stub. In the male the hump is clearly defined, but by no means so high in proportion as in the adult animal. The hump of the calf, from which this description is drawn, is of about the same relative angle and height as that of an adult cow buffalo. The specimen itself is well-represented in the accompanying plate. The measurements of this specimen in the flesh were as follows, by Zinamericanus, male, four months old, number 15503 National Museum Collection, height at shoulders, two feet eight inches, length, head and body to insertion of tail, three feet 10 and a half inches, depth of chest, one foot four inches, depth of flank, 10 inches, girth behind foreleg, three feet and a half inch, from base of horns around end of nose, one foot seven and a half inches, length of tail vertebrae, seven inches. The calves begin to shed their coat of red hair about the beginning of August. The first signs of the change, however, appear about a month earlier than that, in the darkening of the mane under the throat and also on the top of the neck. By the first of August, the red hair on the body begins to fall off in small patches and the growth of fine new dark hair seems to actually crowd off the old. As is the case with the adult animals, the shortest hair is the first to be shed, but the change of coat takes place in about half the time that it occupies in the older animals. By the first of October, the transformation is complete and not even a patch of the old red hair remains upon the new suit of brown. This is far from being the case with the old bulls and cows, for even up to the last week in October we found them with an occasional patch of the old hair still clinging to the new on the back or shoulders. Like most young animals, the calf of the buffalo is very easily tamed, especially if taken when only a few weeks old. The one captured in Montana by the writer resisted at first as stoutly as it was able by budding with its head, but after we had tied its legs together and carried it to camp across a horse, it made up its mind to yield gracefully to the inevitable and from that moment it became perfectly docile. It very soon learned to drink milk in the most satisfactory manner and adapted itself to its new surroundings quite as readily as any domestic calf would have done. Its only cry was a low-pitched, pig-like grunt through the nose which was uttered only when hungry or thirsty.  Often a calf has been induced in this way to follow a horseman for miles and eventually to join his camp outfit. It is said that the same result has been accomplished with calves by breathing a few times into their nostrils. In this connection Mr. Catlin's observations upon the habits of buffalo calves are most interesting. In pursuing a large herd of buffaloes at the season when their calves are but a few weeks old, I have often been exceedingly amused with the curious maneuvers of these shy little things. Amidst the thundering confusion of a throng of several hundreds or several thousands of these animals, there will be many of the calves that lose sight of their dams. And being left behind by the throng and the swift-passing hunters, they endeavour to secrete themselves when they are exceedingly put to it on a level prairie where not can be seen save the short grass of six or eight inches in height, save an occasional bunch of wild sage a few inches higher to which the poor, affrighted things will run and dropping on their knees will push their noses under it and into the grass where they will stand for hours with their eyes shut, imagining themselves securely hid whilst they are standing up quite straight upon their hind feet and can easily be seen at several miles distance. It is a familiar amusement with us, accustomed to these scenes, to retreat back over the ground where we have just escorted the herd and approach these little trembling things which stubbornly maintain their positions with their noses pushed under the grass and their eyes strained upon us as we dismount from our horses and are passing around them. From this fixed position they are sure not to move until hands are laid upon them and then for the shins of a novice we can extend our sympathy or if he can preserve the skin on his bones from the furious buttings of its head, we know how to congratulate him on his signal success and good luck. In these desperate struggles for a moment the little thing has conquered and makes no further resistance and I have often in concurrence with a known custom of the country held my hands over the eyes of the calf and breathed a few strong breaths into its nostrils after which I have, with my hunting companions, rode several miles into our encampment with the little prisoner busily following the heels of my horse the whole way, as closely and as affectionately as its instinct would attach it to the company of its dam. This is one of the most extraordinary things that I have met with in the habits of this wild country and although I had often heard of it and felt unable exactly to believe it, I am now willing to bear testimony to the fact from the numerous instances which I have witnessed since I came into the country. During the time that I resided at this post, mouth of the Teton River in the spring of the year, on my way up the river, I assisted in numerous hunts of the buffalo with the fur company's men in bringing in in the above manner several of these little prisoners which sometimes followed for five or six miles close to our horse's heels and even into the fur company's fort and into the stable where our horses were led. In this way, before I left the headwaters of the Missouri, I think we had collected about a dozen which Mr. Laidlaw was successfully raising with the aid of a good milch cow. It must be remembered, however, that such cases as the above were exceptional, even with the very young calves which alone exhibited this trait described. Such instances occurred only when buffaloes existed in such countless numbers that man's presence and influence had not affected the character of the animal in the least.  The war of extermination and the struggle for life and security have instilled into the calf, even from its birth, a mortal fear of both men and horses and the instinct to fly for life. The calf captured by our party was not able to run, but in the most absurd manner it butted our horses as soon as they came near enough and when Private Moran attempted to lay hold of the little fellow, it turned upon him, struck him in the stomach with its head and sent him sprawling into the sage-brush. If it had only possessed the strength it would have led us a lively chase. During 1886 four other buffalo calves were either killed or caught by the cowboys on the Missouri Yellowstone Divide in the Dry Creek region. All of them ran the moment they discovered their enemies. Two were shot and killed. One was caught by a cowboy named Horace Broadhurst, earmarked and turned loose. The fifth one was caught in September on the Porcupine Creek Roundup. He was then about five months old and being abundantly able to travel he showed a clean pair of heels. It took three fresh horses one after another to catch him and his final capture was due to exhaustion and not to the speed of any of his pursuers. The distance covered by the chase from the point where his first pursuer started to where the third one finally lassoed him was considered to be at least 15 miles. But the capture came to naught for on the following day the calf died from overexertion and want of milk. Colonel Dodge states that the very young calves of a herd have to depend upon the old bulls for protection and seldom in vain. The mothers abandoned their offspring on slight provocation and even none at all sometimes if we may judge from the condition of the little wave that fell into our hands had its mother remained with it or even in its neighborhood we should at least have seen her. But she was nowhere within a radius of five miles at the time her calf was discovered nor did she return to look for it as two of us proved by spending the night in the sagebrush at the very spot where the calf was taken. Colonel Dodge declares that the cow seems to possess scarcely a trace of maternal instinct and when frightened will abandon and run away from her calf without the slightest hesitation. When the calves are young they are always kept in the center of each small herd while the bulls dispose themselves on the outside. Apparently the maternal instinct of the cow buffalo was easily mastered by fear that it was often manifested however is proven by the following from Audubon and Bachman. Buffalo calves are drowned from being unable to ascend the steep banks of the rivers across which they have just swam as the cows cannot help them although they stand near the bank and will not leave them to their fate unless something alarms them. On one occasion Mr. Kip of the American Fur Company caught 11 calves their dams all the time standing near the top of the bank. Frequently however the cows leave the young to their fate when most of them perish. In connection with this part of the subject we may add that we were informed when on the Upper Missouri River that when the banks of that river were practicable for cows and their calves could not follow them they went down again after having gained the top and would remain by them until forced away by the cravings of hunger. When thus forced by the necessity of saving themselves to quit their young they seldom if ever return to them. When a large herd of these wild animals are crossing a river the calves or yearlings manage to get on the backs of the cows and are thus conveyed safely over. End of section four. Section five of the extermination of the American bison. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Maria Casper. The extermination of the American bison by William T. Hornaday. Part one, chapter four, the character of the species, continued. Five, the yearling. During the first five months of his life the calf changes its coat completely and becomes in appearance a totally different animal. By the time he is six months old he has taken on all the colors which distinguish him in afterlife accepting that upon his four quarters. The hair on his head has started out to attain a luxuriant length and density which is so conspicuous in the adult and its general color is a rich dark brown shading to black under the chin and throat. The fringe under the neck is long, straight and black and the under parts, the back of the forearm, the outside of the thigh and the tail tuft are all black. The color of the shoulder, the side and the upper part of the hind quarter is a peculiar smoky brown, broccoli brown of Ridgeway. Having in connection with the darker browns of the other parts a peculiar faded appearance quite as if it were due to the bleaching power of the sun. On the four quarters there is none of the bright straw color so characteristic of the adult animal. Along the top of the neck and shoulders, however, this color has at last begun to show faintly. The hair on the body is quite luxuriant both in length and density, in both respects quite equaling if not even surpassing that of the finest adults. For example, the hair on the side of the mounted yearling in the museum group has a length of two to two and a half inches while that on the same region of the adult bull whose pellage is particularly fine is recorded as being two inches only. The horn is a straight conical spike from four to six inches long according to age and perfectly black. The legs are proportionally longer and larger in the joints than those of the full grown animal. The countenance of the yearling is quite interesting. The sleepy, helpless, innocent expression of the very young calf has given place to a wide-awake mischievous look and he seems ready to break away and run at a second's notice. The measurements of the yearling in the museum group are as follows. Bison Americanus, male yearling, taken October 31st, 1886, Montana, number 15694 National Museum Collection. Height at shoulders, three feet five inches, length head and body to insertion of tail, five feet, depth of chest, one foot 11 inches, depth of flank, one foot one inch, girth behind foreleg, four feet three inches, from base of horns around end of nose, two feet one and a half inches, length of tail vertebrae, ten inches. Six, the spike bull. In Hunter's parlance, the male buffalo between the yearling age and four years is called a spike bull, in recognition of the fact that up to the latter period, the horn is a spike, either perfectly straight or with a curved near its base and a straight point the rest of the way up. The curve of the horn is generally hidden in the hair, and the only part visible is the straight terminal spike. Usually the spike points diverge from each other, but often they are parallel and also perpendicular. In the fourth year, however, the points of the horns begin to curve inward toward each other, describing equal arcs of the same circle, as if they were going to meet over the top of the head. In the handsome young spike bull in the museum group, the hair on the shoulders has begun to take on the length, the light color and the tufted appearance of the adult, beginning at the highest point of the hump and gradually spreading. Immediately back of this light patch, the hair is long, but dark and woolly in appearance. The leg tufts have doubled in length and reveal the character of the growth that may be finally expected. The beard has greatly lengthened, as also has the hair upon the bridge of the nose, the forehead, ears, jaws, and all other portions of the head except the cheeks. The spike period of a buffalo is a most interesting one. Like a seventeen-year-old boy, the young bull shows his youth in so many ways it is always conspicuous, and his countenance is so suggestive of a half-bearded youth it fixes the interest to a marked degree. He is active, alert, and suspicious, and when he makes up his mind to run the hunter may as well give up the chase. By a strange fatality, our spike bull appears to be the only one in any museum or even preserved existence as far as can be ascertained. Out of the twenty-five buffaloes killed and preserved by the Smithsonian expedition, ten of which were adult bulls, this specimen was the only male between the yearling and adult ages. An effort to procure another entire specimen of this age from Texas yielded only two spike heads. It is to be sincerely regretted that more specimens representing this very interesting period of the buffalo's life have not been preserved, for it is now too late to procure wild specimens. The following are the post-mortem dimensions of our specimen. Bison Americanus, spike bull, two years old, taken October 14, 1886, Montana, No. 15685 National Museum Collection. Height at shoulders, four feet two inches, length, head and body to insertion of tail, seven feet seven inches, depth of chest, two feet three inches, depth of flank, one foot seven inches, girth behind foreleg, six feet eight inches, from base of horns around end of nose, two feet eight and a half inches, length of tail vertebrae, one foot. Seven, the adult bull. In attempting to describe the adult male in the National Museum group, it is difficult to decide which feature is most prominent, the massive, magnificent head, with its shaggy frontlet and luxuriant black beard, or the lofty hump with its showy covering of straw-yellow hair, in thickly growing locks four inches long. But the head is irresistible in its claims to precedence. It must be observed at this point that in many respects this animal is an exceptionally fine one. In actual size of frame and in quantity and quality of pellage, it is far superior to the average even of wild buffaloes when they were most numerous and at their best. In one respect, however, that of actual bulk, it is believed that this specimen may often have been surpassed. When buffaloes were numerous, and not required to do any great amount of running in order to exist, they were in the autumn months very fat.  We weighed one of the bulls killed by our party and found it to reach one thousand seven hundred twenty seven pounds, although it had already lost a great deal of blood. This was an old bull and not fat. It had probably weighed more at some previous period. Our specimen, when killed, by the writer, December 6, 1886, was in full vigor, superbly muscled, and well fed, but he carried not a single pound of fat. For years the never-ceasing race for life had utterly prevented the secretion of useless and cumbersome fat, and his subsistence had gone toward the development of useful muscle. Having no means by which to weigh him, we could only estimate his weight, in which I called for the advice of my cowboys, all of whom were more or less familiar with the weight of range cattle, and one I regarded as an expert. At first the estimated weight of the animal was fixed at one thousand seven hundred pounds, but with a constitutional fear of estimating over the truth I afterward reduced it to one thousand six hundred pounds. This I am now well convinced was an error, for I believe the first figure to have been nearer the truth. In mounting the skin of this animal, we endeavored by every means in our power, foremost of which were three different sets of measurements taken from the dead animal, one set to check another, to reproduce him when mounted in exactly the same form he possessed in life, muscular but not fat. The color of the body and hind quarters of a buffalo is very peculiar and almost baffles intelligent description. Audubon calls it, between a dark umber and liver shining brown. I once saw a competent artist experiment with his oil colors for a quarter of an hour before he finally struck the combination which exactly matched the side of our large bull. To my eyes the color is a pale gray brown or smoky gray. The range of individual variation is considerable, some being uniformly darker than the average type and others lighter. While the under parts of most adults are dark brown or blackish brown others are actually black. The hair on the body and hind parts is fine, wavy on the outside and woolly underneath and very dense. Add to this the thickness of the skin itself and the combination forms a covering that is almost impervious to cold. The entire four-quarter region, that is the shoulders, the hump and the upper part of the neck, is covered with a luxuriant growth of pale yellow hair, naples yellow plus yellow ochre, which stands straight out in a dense mass, disposed in handsome tufts. The hair is somewhat woolly in its nature and the ends are as even as if the whole mass had lately been gone over with shears and carefully clipped. This hair is four inches in length. As the living animal moved his head from side to side, the hair parted in great vertical furrows so deep that the skin itself seemed almost in sight. As before remarked, to comb this hair would utterly destroy its naturalness, and it should never be done under any circumstances. Standing as it does between the darker hair of the body on one side and the almost black mass of the head on the other, this light area is rendered doubly striking and conspicuous by contrast. It not only covers the shoulders but extends back upon the thorax where it abruptly terminates on a line corresponding to the sixth rib. From the shoulder joint downward the color shades gradually into a dark brown until at the knee it becomes quite black. The huge forearm is lost in a thick mass of long, coarse and rather straight hair ten inches in length. This growth stops abruptly at the knee but it hangs within six inches of the hoof. The front side of this mass is blackish brown but it rapidly shades backward and downward into jet black. The hair on the top of the head lies in a dense matted mass, forming a perfect crown of rich, brown, burnt sienna locks, sixteen inches in length, hanging over the eyes, almost enveloping both horns, and spreading back in rich dark masses upon the light-colored neck. On the cheeks the hair is of the same blackish brown color but comparatively short and lies in beautiful waves. On the bridge of the nose the hair is about six inches in length and stands out in a thick uniform, very curly mass, which always looks as if it had just been carefully combed.  The front part of the chin is similarly clad, and its form is perfectly flat due to the habit of the animal in feeding upon the short, crisp buffalo grass, in the course of which the chin is pressed flat against the ground. The end of the muzzle is very massive, measuring two feet two inches in circumference just back of the nostrils. The hair of the chin beard is coarse, perfectly straight, jet black, and eleven and a half inches in length on our old bull.  I once saw a bull of medium size but fully adult, whose hair was a wonder to behold. I have now in my possession a small lock of hair which I plucked from his forehead, and its length is twenty-two and a half inches. His horns were entirely concealed by the immense mass of long hair that nature had piled upon his head, and his beard was as luxuriant as his frontlet. The nostril opening is large and wide. The color of the hairless portions of the nose and mouth is shiny van dyke brown and black, with a strong tinge of bluish purple. But this latter tint is not noticeable save upon close examination, and the eyelid is the same. The irises of an irregular pear-shaped outline, one and five sixteenths inches in its longest diameter, very dark, reddish brown in color, with a black edging all around it. Ordinarily no portion of the white eyeball is visible, but the broad black band surrounding the iris and a corner patch of white is frequently shown by the turning of the eye. The tongue is bluish purple as are the lips inside. The hoofs and horns are in reality jet black throughout, but the horn often has at the base a scaly dead appearance on the outside, and as the wrinkles around the base increase with age and scale up and gather dirt that part looks gray. The horns of bulls taken in their prime are smooth glossy black, and even look as if they had been half polished with oil. As the bull increases in age the outer layers of the horn begin to break off at the tip, and pile up one upon another until the horn has become a thick blunt stub, with only the tip of what was once a neat and shapely point showing at the end. The bull is then known as a stub horn, and his horns increase in roughness and unsightliness as he grows older. From the long rubbing on the earth the outer curve of each horn is gradually worn flat, which still further marrs its symmetry. The horns serve as a fair index of the age of a bison. After he is three years old, the bison adds each year a ring around the base of his horns, the same as domestic cattle. If we may judge by this, the horn begins to break when the bison is about ten or eleven years old, and the stubbing process gradually continues during the rest of his life. Judging by the teeth, and also the oldest horns I have seen, I am of the opinion that the natural lifetime of the bison is about twenty-five years, certainly no less. Bison Americanus, male, eleven years old, taken December 6, 1866, Montana, No. 15703, National Museum Collection. Height at shoulders to the skin, five feet eight inches. Height at shoulders to the top of hair, six feet. Length head and body to insertion of tail, ten feet two inches. Depth of chest, three feet ten inches. Depth of flank, two feet. Height behind foreleg, eight feet four inches. From base of horns around end of nose, three feet six inches. Length of tail vertebrae, one foot three inches. Circumference of muzzle, back of nostrils, two feet two inches. Eight. The cow in the third year. The young cow, of course, possesses the same youthful appearance already referred to as characterizing the spike bull. The hair on the shoulders has begun to take on a light straw color, and has by this time attained a length which causes it to arrange itself in tufts or locks. The body colors have grown darker and reached their permanent tone. Of course the hair on the head has by no means attained its full length, and the head is not at all handsome. The horns are quite small, but the curve is well defined, and they distinctly mark the sex of the individual even at the beginning of the third year. Bison Americanis, young cow in third year, taken October 14th, 1886, Montana, number 15686 National Museum collection. Right at shoulders, four feet five inches. Length, head and body to insertion of tail, seven feet seven inches. Depth of chest, two feet four inches. Depth of flank, one foot four inches. Girth behind foreleg, five feet four inches. From base of horns around end of nose, two feet eight and a half inches. The length of tail vertebrae, one foot. Nine, the adult cow. The upper body color of the adult cow in the National Museum group, sea plate, is a rich, though not intense, Van Dyke brown, shading imperceptibly down the sides into black, which spreads over the entire underparts and inside of the thighs. The hair on the lower joints of the leg is in turn lighter, being about the same shade as that on the loins. The forearm is concealed in a mass of almost black hair, which gradually shades lighter from the elbow upward and along the whole region of the humerus. On the shoulder itself the hair is pale yellow or straw color, Naples yellow plus yellow ochre, which extends down in a point toward the elbow. From the back of the head a conspicuous bod of curly dark brown hair extends back like a mane along the neck and to the top of the hump, beyond which it soon fades out. The hair on the head is everywhere a rich burnt sea and a brown, except around the corners of the mouth where it shades into black. The horns of the cow bison are slender but solid for about two-thirds of their length from the tip, ringed with age near their base and quite black. Very often they are imperfect in shape, and out of every five pairs at least one is generally misshapen. Usually one horn is crumpled, that is, dwarfed in length and unnaturally thickened at the base, and very often one horn is found to be merely an unsightly misshapen stub. The udder of the cow bison is very small, as might be expected of an animal which must do a great deal of hard traveling, but the milk is said to be very rich. Some authorities declare that it requires the milk of two domestic cows to satisfy one buffalo calf, but this, I think, is an error. Our calf began in May to consume six quarts of domestic milk daily, which by June 10 had increased to eight, and up to July 10 nine quarts was the utmost it could drink. By that time it began to eat grass, but the quantity of milk disposed of remained about the same. Bison Americanus, adult cow, eight years old, taken November 18, 1886, in Montana, number 15767 National Museum Collection. Height at shoulders, four feet ten inches, length head and body to insertion of tail, eight feet six inches, depth of chest, three feet seven inches, depth of flank, one foot seven inches, girth behind foreleg, six feet ten inches, from base of horns around end of nose, three feet, length of tail vertebrae, one foot, end of section five.