George Bird Grinnell

By George Bird Grinnell

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THE LAST OF THE HERD

The buffalo was the largest and economically the most important of North American mammals. It was also one of the most numerous, and over a great area of the continent was practically the sole support of its aboriginal inhabitants. Within the memory of men who as yet are hardly middle-aged, it roamed the country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, in multitudes so vast that it was commonly stated that its numbers could not be materially reduced, that it would exist long after the speakers had died. Yet, within thirty years it has so absolutely disappeared that the number of living wild buffalo existing to-day is probably not greater than the herd of European bison—commonly, but erroneously, called aurochs—so carefully preserved in the forests of Lithuania by the Russian Czar.

The history of the buffalo’s extermination has been many times written, and the cause of its disappearance is not far to seek. It was killed in great numbers by the Indians, who used its flesh for food, its skin for clothing and for their shelters. Yet, under natural conditions, the destruction which they wrought was never very extensive, and was more than compensated for by the annual increase. Wolves, bears, and other wild animals which were found in great numbers throughout the buffalo’s range in old days, devoured many of them; but these were largely the aged, wounded, and crippled, or those which were drowned in the rivers, or mired in quicksands and mud-holes. All this destruction by natural enemies did little more than keep the race in good condition, by cutting off the sickly and the feeble.

When, however, the white man appeared on the scene, new conditions arose. The buffalo had a robe which was as useful to the white man as to the Indian. A trade speedily sprang up in these robes, which the Indians were glad to kill and tan for a cupful of sugar, or a few charges of powder and ball, or a drink or two of alcohol. Now, the Indians had a motive for killing which heretofore they had not had. They killed more buffalo and made more robes than before, but still they made no impression on the wandering millions which swayed to and fro under the influence of the seasons. Steamboats might pass down the Missouri River loaded to the guards with bales of robes, but the vast herds of buffalo showed no diminution. The early white explorers, or trappers, or traders, did not themselves take the trouble to collect buffalo hides; there were more valuable furs in the country, beaver and otter and bears, which brought better prices, and—more important than this—did not require to be tanned before they became marketable. For a buffalo skin untanned was never shipped; it was only after some Indian woman had expended on it days of patient labor, that it would bring at the trading post the pitiful reward which the white man gave.

At last, however,—and that was less than forty years ago,—a railroad began to push its way out on to the broad plains lying between the Missouri River and the Rockies, and to thrust itself into the very region where the buffalo fed. Over the shining rails of this railroad trains began to pass, carrying passengers; and among these were many white men eager for gain. These at once saw the possibilities of the buffalo. At first they killed them for meat, but soon the hides began to be shipped also. And other men, learning that the buffalo hides brought $2.00 each, and that buffalo were to be had for the trouble of shooting them, crowded into the range.

Then there began along the Platte Valley in Nebraska, a scene of slaughter which has seldom been equalled. The country was full of buffalo skinners. Each hunter had his teams, and his gangs of skinners which followed him about from place to place, and cared for the hides of the beasts which he killed. In some places the only water accessible was the Platte River, and here the buffalo came to drink. Here, too, the hunters, concealed in ravines or in rifle-pits that they had dug, shot down the beasts one by one, as they came to water, and, indeed, formed so complete a cordon along the river’s banks, that the buffalo could not get through and turned back into the hills. When at night the thirsty herds tried to approach the river under cover of darkness, they found that the hunters had built along the bottom great fires, which they kept up all night, and which the scared buffalo did not dare to pass.

It took but a little time to split the herd which for centuries had passed across the valley north and south with the seasons. It was about 1870 when this work began, and in 1874 the buffalo were last seen in the valley of the Platte. The herd had been split.

As other railroads to the southward pushed into the buffalo country, the same scenes were enacted. The buffalo country swarmed with hunters who came in constantly increasing numbers, so that none of them earned any money by their butcher’s work. The price of hides fell, but the buffalo continued to be slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands of hides went to market, but these were only a small proportion of the buffalo killed. Colonel Dodge has expressed the belief, that of the buffalo killed, only one-fourth or one-fifth reached a market. It is conceivable that the proportion was even less. A very large number of the hunters knew nothing about hunting, or shooting, or skinning a buffalo, or curing its hide. The number of maimed and crippled animals that went off to die was very large. The number of hides ruined in skinning was large, and the number improperly cured was still larger.

By the latter part of 1874, buffalo to the southward of the Platte River began to be very scarce, and in 1876 they were almost gone. After that none were found in the southern country except a few in the southern portion of the Indian Territory and in the waterless country of the pan-handle of Texas. There, protected by the drought, and so few in number as to present little attraction to the skin hunter, a few lingered for some years, until finally captured or destroyed by Buffalo Jones in his expeditions after calves for domestication.

In the northern country the buffalo lingered longer. The Northern Pacific Railroad, built as far west as Bismarck on the Missouri River in 1873, stopped there for six or seven years, and it was not until it had been continued well beyond the Missouri that it again entered the buffalo range and brought with it, as was inevitable, the buffalo skinner. When he came, he did the work he had done in the South, and did it as effectively. But as the number of buffalo left in the northern herd was small, it took only two or three years to destroy them.

After 1883, except for a band of about five thousand which had been overlooked on one of the Sioux reservations, there were no buffalo left in the northern country except a few scattering individuals, which, hidden in out-of-the-way places, had been overlooked by the hunters and Indians, and so for a year or two were preserved from slaughter. In the arid region about the heads of the Dry Fork and Porcupine Creek in Montana, one of these little groups was left, which yielded to expeditions sent out by the National Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, a series of specimens, probably the last of this species ever to be collected for science. They were brought together just in time, for since then there have been no buffalo.

A small herd of the so-called wood bison still inhabits the vast wilderness between Athabasca Lake and Lesser Slave Lake, but their numbers are few. In the year 1900 there were two little bunches of wild buffalo in the United States, perhaps neither of them numbering more than fifteen or twenty head. In the summer of 1901 one of these bunches, which had long ranged in Lost Park, Colorado, was wiped out by poachers, while for some years nothing has been heard of the other little band which ranged in Montana, and which, in 1895, numbered forty or fifty head, no less than thirty-two of which were killed a year or two later by Red River half-breeds who made a special trip to their range. At present the only important band of buffalo in the United States is that ranging within the confines of the National Park, and it is altogether probable that this does not number more than twenty-five or thirty.

No doubt the extraordinary abundance of the buffalo had something to do with the wastefulness of the slaughter which followed the railroad building into the buffalo range. Many people no doubt really believed that in their time the buffalo could not be exterminated. They seemed to reason that as there always had been “millions of buffalo” there always would be. Men killed buffalo for any foolish, childish reason that might come into their heads,—to try their guns, to see whether they could hit them, for fun!

How wantonly even some of the first traders destroyed them is often shown by the few writings that have come down to us from those early days. Henry, in his Journal of August, 1800, tells of the way in which he and some of his men passed the time while waiting for others of his people to come up. He says, “We amused ourselves by lying in wait, close under the bank, for the buffalo which came to drink. When the poor brutes came to within about ten yards of us, on a sudden we would fire a volley of twenty-five guns at them, killing and wounding many. We only took the tongues. The Indians suggested that we should all fire together at one lone bull which appeared, to have the satisfaction, as they said, of killing him stone dead. The beast advanced till he was within six or eight paces, when the yell was given, and all hands let fly; but instead of falling he galloped off, and it was only after several more discharges that he was brought to the ground. The Indians enjoyed this sport highly—it is true, the ammunition cost them nothing.”

There has been much misunderstanding as to the former distribution of the buffalo over the North American continent, and the extent of territory through which it was found. Many respected authorities have declared that it occurred in Eastern Canada, and generally along the Atlantic slope; in portions of New England, the Middle states, and south even into Florida. It was said in general terms that the buffalo occurred over the entire continent of North America, from Florida to the 50th degree of north latitude.

These loose statements were corrected by Dr. J. A. Allen, in his most important monograph on the American bisons, and it is now well understood that the range of the buffalo included only about one-third of the continent; that, while it was found on the Atlantic slope, this was only in the southeastern portion of its range; while in Canada, New England, and Florida, it was probably unknown.

The error into which early writers were led on this subject undoubtedly arose from the terms used by the earlier explorers, who spoke constantly of vaches, or vaches sauvages, and less frequently of buffu or buffle. But the term wild cows, used by the early French Jesuits and English explorers, referred to the elk (Cervus canadensis), while the words buffu or buffle were used to designate moose (Alces). In some of the narratives of the journeys of the Jesuit travellers, there appear on almost every page references to the herds of vaches sauvages, and many of these writers, at one time or another, describe these wild cows in such unmistakable language as to show beyond question that they were the elk or wapiti.

Dr. Allen assigns the Alleghany Mountains as the general eastern boundary of the range of the buffalo, although explaining that it frequently passed beyond that range, and showing conclusively that it occurred in the western portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Hornaday cites some evidence to show that it occurred in the District of Columbia, and quotes Francis Moore, in his “Voyage to Georgia,” to prove that there, at least, buffalo were found close to the salt water.

While Dr. Allen gives the Tennessee River as the southern boundary of the buffalo’s range, west of the Alleghanies and east of the Mississippi River, Mr. Hornaday quotes a number of references to show that it occurred in some numbers in what is now the state of Mississippi, and gives a tradition of the Choctaws, narrated by Clayborne, in regard to the disappearance of the species from that section. This tradition is to the effect that during the early part of the eighteenth century a great drought occurred there by which the whole country was dried up. For three years not a drop of rain fell. Large streams went dry, and the forest trees all died. Up to that time, it is said, elk and buffalo had been numerous there, but during this drought these animals crossed the Mississippi River and never returned.

In the eastern portion of its range, the Great Lakes formed a barrier on the north which the buffalo did not pass; but from western New York westward, it was found in numbers along the southern shores of these lakes, and in the territory now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Audubon tells us that in the first years of the nineteenth century there were buffalo in Kentucky, but declares that about 1810, or soon after, they all disappeared. This disappearance was due chiefly to their actual destruction by white men and by Indians, and not, as is commonly stated, to the retiring of the great herds before the advance of settlement and civilization. It seems that the last buffalo were killed east of the Mississippi River about the year 1820, although it may be that in Wisconsin and Minnesota they lasted somewhat longer.

West of the Great Lakes, and turning sharply northward so as to run nearly northwest, the eastern border of the buffalo’s range west of the Mississippi was a line running very near the western extremity of Lake Superior, up through the Lake of the Woods, west of Lake Winnipeg, and thence northward to and beyond the Great Slave Lake. There this border line turned to the west, and then sharply to the south, and meeting the Rocky Mountains not far from where Peace River leaves them, followed the range south, about to the 49th parallel; and then turning southwestwardly and including Idaho, a part of eastern Oregon, the northeast corner of Nevada, the greater portion of Utah, and most of New Mexico, the line passed down south well into Mexico, turning eastwardly just north of the 25th parallel of latitude, and running north to the coast, which it followed around again to the mouth of the Mississippi.

As it has been known in our day, the buffalo in the southern portion of its range was a trans-Missouri animal. North of the parallel of 45 degrees it was found in equal numbers on both sides of the Missouri River, and in its northern extension reached, and possibly even to-day reaches, north to Great Slave Lake; for, as already stated, the only considerable band of wild buffalo to-day is the wood bison of the north, estimated to number four hundred or five hundred.

Besides the boundaries thus set forth, it is probable that in early days there was a considerable extension of the buffalo’s range northward and westward, into portions of what is now Alaska. Certain it is that in that territory buffalo remains have been found in great numbers. Some of these skulls belong to species long extinct, and much larger than the American bison; but, on the other hand, there are many which are closely similar to that species.

The range of the buffalo to the west of the Rocky Mountains began to contract not very long after the narrowing of its range on the east. The earlier explorers in the West, from Pike downward, report buffalo in abundance. Yet, as already stated, the westernmost point at which their remains have been found is among the foot-hills of the eastern side of the Blue Mountains of Oregon. In 1836, it is reported, buffalo were abundant in Salt Lake Valley, but there nearly all were soon afterward destroyed by deep snows, which covered the ground for a long period of time. This corresponds well with statements made to me by John Robinson, better known in early days as Uncle Jack Robinson, one of the old-time trappers, who died between 1870 and 1880. In 1870 he told me that the buffalo on the tributaries of the Green River and on the Laramie Plains had all perished nearly forty years before, during a winter when very deep snows fell, followed by a thaw and subsequent cold, which crusted the snow so that the buffalo could not get through it, and starved to death. This statement was confirmed by the small number of remains, most of them extremely old and weathered, which we found in this region at that time. On the other hand, on upper tributaries of the Green River buffalo were found much later, and it is possible that these may have been animals which wintered in narrow valleys of the mountains, where, during this deep snow, food was accessible. Fremont states that in the spring of 1824 buffalo were abundant as far west as Fort Hall, while Bonneville reported them in extraordinary abundance in the Bear River Valley.

The mere fact that buffalo were not seen by an explorer who passed through any given territory does not necessarily show that they did not range in that country. I have travelled for months through a buffalo range without seeing buffalo or any evidence of their very recent presence, yet the signs found showed conclusively that a short time before they had been there in vast numbers. It would have been perfectly possible for two honest reports, made a few months or years apart by explorers who were not prairie men, absolutely to contradict each other.

Although the buffalo disappeared from the country west of the Green River, and even from the Laramie Plains, a long time ago, it lingered much later on tributaries of the Platte River further to the northward. There were buffalo on the Sweetwater and its tributaries between 1870 and 1880, and on certain other tributaries of the North Platte River between 1880 and 1890. About this same time there was a small band ranging in what is called the Red Desert Country, south of what is now the National Park. But the last of these disappeared about 1890.

The color of the buffalo is well understood to be a dark liver brown over most of the body, changing to black on the long hair of the fore legs, muzzle, and beard. The long hair on the hump is yellowish, faded from sunburn, and often much the color of the hair of a “tow-headed child.” The mountain bison, which lives largely in the timber, and is scarcely or not at all exposed to the sun, is much darker, sometimes almost black, throughout.

Very rarely buffalo of unusual color were seen. These were sometimes roan, sometimes gray or spotted with white, or even pure white throughout. A hide taken on the upper Missouri about 1879 was white on the head, legs, and belly, and elsewhere of normal color; the result was that when the animal was skinned and the hide tanned there was a fine robe of the ordinary color bordered with a wide band of white. If I recollect aright, this particular hide was sold on the river to an Englishman for $500.

Buffalo of unusual color, being so seldom seen, were regarded by the Indians with great reverence. Among the plains tribes, the buffalo, on which they depended for food, shelter, and clothing, was sacred. Its skull was usually placed on the ground near the sweat lodge, prayers were made, and the pipe was offered to it, in a petition to the buffalo to remain with them, to be abundant, and even to run over smooth ground, so that their horses should not fall during the chase. If buffalo in general were sacred, how much more should the white one receive reverence. The Pawnees cherished their skins as sacred objects, and kept them in their medicine bundles, or used them to wrap about these bundles. The Blackfeet regarded white buffalo as especially dedicated to the Sun, and hung up the white robe as a votive offering to that deity. In the same way, the Cheyennes, in old times, sacrificed the hide of a white buffalo to the Sun, although later, after their habits had been measurably changed by contact with the whites, they sometimes sold such robes.

My friend George Bent—son of Col. William Bent, one of the historic characters of the early West—tells me that during a long course of trading among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, he has seen but five robes that could fairly be called white. One of these was silver-gray, another, white, a third, cream color, the fourth, dapple gray, and the fifth, yellowish fawn color. He tells me that in ancient times the white buffalo was regarded by the Cheyennes as sacred, and that, if one of them killed a white buffalo, he left it where it fell, taking nothing from it, and not even putting a knife into it. The Cheyennes believe that any white buffalo belongs far to the north, and comes from that region where, according to their tradition, the buffalo originally came out of the ground.

A great many years ago a war party of Cheyennes went up north against the Crows. One day they came to a hill, and when they looked over it they saw before them great herds of buffalo lying down, and among them a cow, perfectly white. When the buffalo stood up to go to water, the white cow also stood up, and went with them, and it was observed that none of the other buffalo went very close to her. They did not appear to fear her, but they did not crowd close about her; they gave her plenty of room, as if they respected her. This led the Cheyennes to think that the white buffalo was a chief among other buffalo.

The women of the Cheyennes did not dress a white buffalo’s hide. When occasion arose for such work, it was commonly done by some captive woman; for example, a Kiowa, or a Pawnee,—some one who was not bound by Cheyenne customs and Cheyenne fears. Rarely, a Cheyenne woman went through a certain ceremony, being prayed over by a medicine-man, and painted in a peculiar fashion; this ceremony removed the tabu, and she might then dress the white robe.

The habits of the buffalo were in most respects those of domestic cattle. They fed in loose herds as cattle do, the members of a family—that is to say, the old cow and her progeny, sometimes up to three or four years old—keeping together; the old bulls, lazier, heavier, and less active than the cows and the younger stock, were usually on the outskirts of the herd, and if it was slowly moving in any direction, were likely to be behind. Much has been written concerning the intelligence of the buffalo, and the manner in which the bulls stood sentry over the herd, constantly on the watch for danger. There is not and never was any foundation for these stories, which were mere creations of the writer’s imagination. As a matter of fact, the cows were much more alert and watchful than the bulls, were always the first to detect danger and to move away from it, while the bulls were dull and slow, and often did not start to run until the herd at large was in full flight. Moreover, the cows and younger animals of the herd were much swifter than the bulls, and so pressed constantly to the front, while the bulls brought up the rear. The disposition of the males had nothing to do with any desire to protect the herd, but resulted from the fact that they were slower than the others. The earlier writers on the habits of these and other animals, credited them with human motives and aspirations, which of course they do not possess. A somewhat similar fashion of writing about animals is current at the present day, but is false and unnatural, and will pass.

The hides of the buffalo are in their best condition in the early part of the winter, and it was the practice of the Indians to collect their robes at that time of the year,—namely, between November and January. Soon after January, however, the hair begins to grow loose, and it is shed during the spring and early summer, though often great patches cling to the body until late summer or early fall. I have seen buffalo in the month of July still clad in what looked like a loose robe, the old hair hanging together in an almost complete mat, covering the body. Usually, however, by rubbing against trees, rocks, and banks of dirt, and by rolling on the prairie, the loose hair is got rid of by early summer. In very old animals the moult takes place later and less easily than in those in good condition, and sometimes old and lean buffalo do not seem to shed their coats completely.

The rutting season begins in July and lasts about two months. During this time frequent battles take place among the bulls, apparently fierce on account of the size and activity of the combatants, but usually without important results. These fights are much like similar contests between domestic bulls; they paw up the ground, kneel down and thrust their horns into the earth, mutter and bellow and grunt; but although they charge on each other with fury, and come together with a tremendous shock, the contest usually ends in nothing more important than the driving off, for a time, of the weaker bull. From their great activity at this season, the bulls rapidly lose flesh; but after the rut is over, they regain it, so that by the beginning of the cold weather they, like the cows, are fat and in good order.

The buffalo cow produces, usually, a single calf, which may be born during the months of March, April, May, or June. The usual time for the calves to be born is in April and May. Shortly before that time the mother separates herself from the herd, which, however, she rejoins not long after the birth of the calf. Like many other ruminants, the mother hides her calf when it is small and weak, but does not wander far from it. After it has gained some strength it joins other calves, and these usually keep together a little apart from the main herd, their mothers coming to them from time to time in order that they may nurse.

When first born, the calves are reddish yellow in color, do not possess any noticeable hump, and look very much like ordinary domestic calves, except that possibly the tail is slightly shorter. Before very long, however, they commence to grow darker in color, and I have seen calves in August that at a little distance seemed almost as dark as the adult buffalo.

The cow is devoted to her calf, and is ready to fight for it against any enemy except man. Usually, in the buffalo chase, the cow, thoroughly frightened, paid no attention to the calf. But, on the other hand, cases have occurred, where men have been capturing calves to rear in captivity, in which the cow refused to desert her offspring, but turned upon the captor of the calf and charged him with the utmost boldness.

Colonel Dodge instances a case where a number of bulls devoted themselves to protecting a calf against wolves. He says, “I have seen evidence of this many times, but the most remarkable instance I ever heard of was related to me by an army surgeon who was an eye-witness. He was one evening returning to camp after a day’s hunt, when his attention was attracted by the curious actions of a little knot of six or eight buffalo. Approaching sufficiently near to see clearly, he discovered that this little knot were all bulls, standing in a close circle with their heads downward, while in a concentric circle, at some twelve or fifteen paces distant, sat, licking their chops in impatient expectancy, at least a dozen large gray wolves—except man, the most dangerous enemy of the buffalo. The doctor determined to watch the performance. After a few moments the knot broke up, still keeping in a compact mass, and started on a trot for the main herd some half mile off. To his very great astonishment, the doctor now saw that the central and controlling figure of this mass was a poor little calf, so newly born as scarcely to be able to walk. After going fifty or one hundred yards, the calf lay down; the bulls disposed themselves in a circle as before, and the wolves, who had trotted along on each flank of their retreating supper, sat down and licked their chops again. This was repeated again and again, and although the doctor did not see the finale (it being late and the camp distant), he had no doubt that the noble fathers did their whole duty by their offspring, and carried it safely to the herd.”

We may imagine that this was an unusual occurrence; at the same time, it is true that a group of buffalo, if one of their number is attacked or threatened by wolves while they are close together, will all rally to the general defence, and will stand by each other. But that the bulls make it their business to defend calves, or systematically preserve anything except their own skins, I do not believe.

Few people who have seen the buffalo only in captivity, few even of those who have hunted them on the level plains, have any idea of the agility of this clumsy, heavy creature, or of the disposition that it shows to reach elevated points, so difficult of access that a horse might find it a hard matter to climb them. In old times, one might see buffalo ascending steeps that were nearly vertical; or, on the other hand, throwing themselves down the sides of mountains so sharply sloping and rough that a horseman would not dare follow them. Like many other animals, wild and tame, they often liked to seek elevated points from which a wide view might be had, and I have found their tracks and other signs on points high up in the mountains, where only sheep or goats would be looked for. The mountain bison, so-called—and by many hunters regarded as a species quite distinct from the buffalo of the plains—was especially given to frequenting the peaks in summer; no doubt in part to avoid the attacks of flies, but also in part—as I believe—from sheer love of climbing.

Like most other herbivorous animals, the buffalo was subject to panics, and was easily stampeded, and when thoroughly frightened, a herd ran for a long way before stopping. When alarmed, they huddled together as closely as possible, running in a dense mass. The result of this was that only the animals on the outskirts of the herd could see where they were going; those in the centre blindly followed their leaders and depended on them. This very fact was a source of danger, for the leaders, crowded upon by those that followed, even if they saw peril in front of them, could not stop, and often could not even turn aside, but were constantly forced on to a danger that they would gladly have avoided. This is the entirely simple explanation of a characteristic often wondered at by writers about this species; that is, their habit of running headlong into danger,—plunging over cut banks into the pens prepared for them by the Indians, or rushing into quicksands or places where they mired down, or into deep water, which might have well been avoided, or even up against such obstacles as a train of cars or a steamboat in the river. The simple fact is that the animals which saw the danger were unable to avoid it on account of the pressure from behind, and those that were pressing the leaders on were ignorant of the danger toward which they were rushing.

I have already adverted to the popular but erroneous belief that the buffalo performed extensive migrations in spring and fall. This is not true. There were, unquestionably, certain seasonal movements east and west, and north and south, yet these movements were never very extended, and constituted nothing more than the very general shiftings which are made by many ruminants between a summer and a winter range. Throughout the country lying between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri River, the buffalo, in summer, moved up close to the mountains and even into the foot-hills; and at the coming of winter, with its snows and its bitter winds, they moved to the eastward again, seeking the lower ground and such shelter as the ravines and buttes and timbered river valleys of the prairie might afford.

On the other hand, buffalo, in their journeys to water, usually travelled to the nearest streams, and as on the plains the streams usually run from west to east, and the buffalo travelled in single file, their trails ran at right angles to the course of the rivers, or north and south. It is quite possible that the directions of these trails, deeply worn, and showing the passage of great numbers of animals, may have given rise to the popular belief in this north and south migration.

At the same time, it is true that the buffalo herds were more or less constantly in motion. As they were very numerous, it was obviously essential that they should move constantly, to reach fresh grazing grounds. Often, too, they were disturbed by hunters, red or white, who stampeded the herds, which then rushed off in a close mass, perhaps not to stop for ten or a dozen miles. Besides that, frequently, the prairie was burned, so that they were deprived of food, and long journeys must be made to reach fresh grazing grounds.

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Not very much is known, and very much less has been written concerning the tendency in animals, wild and domestic, to confine themselves to particular localities; yet all people who live much out of doors understand, even though they may not reason much about it, how very local in habit many birds and animals are. The ranchman, of course, knows that the horses and cattle which feed on his range divide themselves up into little bunches, each of which selects some special area where they spend all their time, rarely moving far from it, except to make journeys to water; or, at some change of the seasons, to migrate from summer to winter range or back again. In domestic stock this attachment to locality is strongly marked, and it is a common thing for animals that have been driven to a range hundreds of miles distant from that on which they have been accustomed to feed, to travel back toward their old haunts as soon as they are turned loose. I have known cases where one-third of a large bunch of horses, driven to a new range four or five hundred miles away, were a year later gathered again on their old home range. It is a matter of common experience for horses that escape from owners, travelling at a distance from the home range, to take the back trail and return to it.

Among our larger game animals a similar condition of things prevails. White-tail deer are greatly attached to particular localities, and when undisturbed, confine their wanderings within very narrow limits. Even if thoroughly frightened, and driven to a considerable distance, they soon return. If an old white-tail buck is run with dogs, he may make a long chase, and cover a wide stretch of country, but to-morrow he will probably be found in his old home. In the same way, mule deer, mountain sheep, white goats, and antelope show their attachment for localities, and unless persistently disturbed, wander but little.

The same thing is true with regard to non-migratory birds. Ruffed grouse attach themselves to certain pieces of woodland, or to particular swamps, and the birds may be found there all through the season. In like manner, quail establish themselves on certain small pieces of ground, and after their haunts have been learned, may be started there with unfailing regularity.

During many years’ experience with big game, I have often had these facts thrust on my attention, and have seen much to warrant the belief that, like other wild animals, the buffalo feels attachment for a particular range of country, which it does not desert except for good reason, or when the change from summer to winter, or back again, leads to a migration that may fairly be called seasonal. The buffalo’s attachment to locality, and its natural inertia, is well exemplified by an experience of Major G. W. H. Stouch, U.S.A., retired, a veteran soldier of more than thirty-five years’ experience on the plains, of which he told me many years ago. I give it as nearly as possible in his own words:—

“In the fall of 1866 I was directed to proceed with Company C, Third Infantry, to reËstablish old Fort Fletcher on the north fork of Big Creek, sixteen miles below the present Fort Hays, Kansas. When on October 16th we marched down to the site chosen, and went into camp, I noticed half a mile above us on the creek bottom a considerable herd of buffalo feeding; there were perhaps eight or nine hundred of them. As soon as I saw them, it occurred to me that I would leave them undisturbed, and that so long as they remained there they might furnish us a supply of beef at very little cost of time or trouble. I therefore ordered the men not to hunt up the creek, or disturb these buffalo in any way, instructing them to do all their hunting down the stream.

“In order to put my idea in practice at once, I detailed one of the soldiers as hunter and butcher of the company, and told him to go up the creek and kill a buffalo, but not to show himself either before or after firing the shot—merely to kill a fat cow and then to remain under cover until I joined him with a wagon. He did so. At the report of the rifle the buffalo fired at ran a few steps, and then lay down, while those nearest to it made a few jumps, looked around, saw no one, and then went on feeding. From the camp we were watching the result of the shot, and as soon as fired, I went with a wagon to bring in the meat. As the wagon approached the carcass, the nearest buffalo moved out of the way, without showing any special fear, and the wagon returned to camp with its load. This was repeated daily, the buffalo never being frightened either by the shot or the wagon, and seeming to become more tame as time went on, often approaching within a few hundred yards of where we were at work erecting the buildings.

“About November 1st, Troop E, Seventh Cavalry (under Lieutenant Wheelan) arrived to reinforce the post; and about November 19th Company B, Thirty-seventh Infantry (under Lieutenant Phelps) also arrived. I explained my plan of operation to these officers, and requested them to detail hunters from their companies, and to order their men to hunt down the creek, and not to disturb what I had come to regard as the post beef herd. They did so, and the herd still remained with us.

“One morning in February, ’67, a sergeant, whom I had sent the day before with a small detail to make a scout, rapped at my door, and reported his return. Among other things, he said: ‘Lieutenant, I met our buffalo herd travelling up the creek, about fifteen miles from here. They were moving slowly; just feeding along.’

“I determined to see if they could not be brought back, and taking twenty-five men (accompanied by Lieutenant Cooke, Third Infantry, Adjutant, Assistant-Surgeon Fisk, and Mr. Hale, the post trader) rode up the creek, and entered the valley above the herd. Then, forming a skirmish line across the bottom, we very slowly advanced toward the buffalo. When they first noticed us, the leaders seemed uncertain what to do; but as they had been accustomed to seeing large parties of us, instead of running, as I feared they might, they at length turned about and began slowly to work backward in the direction from which they had come. By nightfall the herd was on its old feeding ground, and there we left it, and there it remained until spring, and would, no doubt, have remained longer, but, unluckily, the Seventh Cavalry, under General Custer, rode in upon it, as they came down the creek to the post for supplies, after their unsuccessful chase after the Cheyennes, who had run away from General Hancock. General Custer detailed two troops with orders to secure meat for the command. After chasing it, and killing forty-four head, the herd was scattered, and never returned. The herd supplied the post (consisting of about three hundred officers and men) with fresh beef from October 16, 1866, until about April 20, 1867.”

The buffalo calf, when captured very young, was easily tamed. Indeed, nothing more was needed at times than to permit the calf to suck the fingers for a moment or two, when it would follow the rider into camp, and seemed to be wholly without fear of man. As already stated, when very young it is hidden by its mother, and, like the young of deer, elk, antelope, and other ruminants, it can then be captured, and makes no effort to escape. This, by many writers, has been denounced as stupidity and dulness. As a matter of fact, it is merely following out the protective instinct which is common to the young of many large mammals, at a time when they are without weapons for self-protection, and without strength or speed to save themselves by flight.

At various times during the last two hundred years, attempts have been made to domesticate the buffalo, and with entire success. But these attempts have never been continued long enough to be productive of any economic results. Nevertheless, buffalo were kept in captivity from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and toward the end of that century were actually domesticated, bred, and crossed with domestic cattle in Virginia, and somewhat later in Kentucky. The very full account given to Mr. Audubon by Mr. Robert Wycliff, of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1843, has often been quoted, and all the experiments since made have confirmed the conclusions then stated. It was proved, and is now well known, that the buffalo, in domestication, are easily handled, respect fences, and are but little more difficult to control than domestic cattle; that the male buffalo crosses readily with the domestic cow; that the progeny of the two species are fertile with either species and among themselves. It has also been demonstrated that the cross-bred animal is larger than either parent, and so makes a better beef animal. Besides, its hide yields a robe which, if not equal to that of the buffalo, is, at least, vastly superior to the hide of the ordinary beef. More important than either the beef or the robe, is the very greatly increased hardiness of the cross-bred animal, which enables it to endure extremes of cold and snow, which would destroy the ordinary domestic cattle.

From the days of Robert Wycliff, almost to the time when Mr. C. J. Jones, of Kansas, began experiments in breeding buffalo, little or nothing had been done in this direction. A few years earlier Mr. S. L. Bedson, of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, set to work at the same problem, and both men met with abundant measure of success. Both bred pure buffalo in considerable numbers, and both succeeded in breeding the buffalo with the domestic cow, and securing a progeny which was remarkable for size and for the robes produced. Indeed, Mr. Hornaday quotes Mr. Bedson as saying that the three-quarter bred animal produces “an extra good robe which will readily bring forty to fifty dollars in any market where there is a demand for robes.”

It is altogether possible that the time for establishing a race of buffalo cattle has past. The buffalo are extinct, and the number of animals in captivity to be drawn on, very small. Nevertheless, the great preponderance of bulls among these domesticated buffalo, makes it possible that something in this direction might be done, though the chances now are much against it.

The buffalo has often been broken to the yoke. Robert Wycliff says of this animal, “He walks more actively, and I think has more strength than an ox of the same weight. I have broken them to the yoke and found them capable of making excellent oxen; and for drawing wagons, carts, or other heavily laden vehicles on long journeys, they would, I think, be greatly preferable to the common ox.” Under the yoke, however, they are said to be somewhat difficult to control, and cases are cited where broken buffalo have, for various causes, run away, to the great detriment of the load they were hauling. In the year 1874 a settler on Trail Creek, in Montana, told me that he had a pair of bulls broken to the yoke, and declared that they would haul more than “any two yoke of cattle on the place.”

There is another reason besides the lack of buffalo for thinking that no systematic attempt to cross these animals with domestic cattle will ever be attempted. The days of free ranging, where the cattle are turned out on the prairie to look after themselves, winter and summer, are almost over, and year by year the area of the free range is becoming more and more contracted. The advantages of great size and a valuable robe would still be an attraction to the farmer; but the hardiness which enables the half-breed animal to endure almost any winter weather will soon cease to be required, because the cattle of almost all the western country will be kept under fence, and fed on hay during the winter.

From time immemorial the buffalo furnished food to the Indians, and with the coming into the land of the white man it supported him also. What the primitive method was by which the Indians hunted buffalo we do not know, but at the time the redmen became known to the whites, when they were footmen, the only method of securing this animal was by the surround, or by driving it into pens from which the buffalo could not escape, and where they were easily destroyed. Such pens were built at the foot of cut bluffs or low cliffs, over which the buffalo were driven; or, in the more open and flat country, where ravines with steep sides were not found, a long fenced causeway was often built, on which the buffalo were driven, and when reaching its end, the leaders, by reason of the pressure of those behind, were forced to jump into the pen, and the others followed, until all were captured. Often, if the drive was made over a high bluff, the fall killed many of the beasts, and even when this did not take place, many of the younger and weaker animals were destroyed by their fellows in the tremendous crush which took place within the pen.

No sooner did the buffalo find themselves confined, than they began to race about the enclosure, and the men standing on the logs which formed its sides, shot them with their stone-headed arrows as they ran by, until at length all had fallen.

The principle of the foot surround was not different from this. When a herd of buffalo was found, the Indians waited for a day when the wind did not blow, and then, creeping toward the buffalo, they surrounded them on all sides. When the line was fairly complete, one man would show himself, and perhaps frighten the buffalo by waving his robe at them. They would start to run, when the men stationed at the point of the circle toward which they were directing their course would show themselves, toss their robes in the air, and turn them in another direction. Thus, whichever way they ran, they found people standing before them, and soon they began to run around in a circle within the ring of men, and continued to do this until they became exhausted. Little by little the men drew closer together, making the circle smaller, and soon the buffalo were running near enough to them for them to be shot by their arrows.

It did not always happen that the hunt was successful. Sometimes in the pen a strong bull might find a place where no one was standing, and might leap over the barrier, or at least leap on it, throwing his whole weight against it. Very likely he would be followed by others, and perhaps a number would succeed in surmounting the wall; or they might even break it down, and then the whole herd would stream out of the pen and be lost. Sometimes, too, in the surround, especially if the herd of buffalo was large, it was found impossible to turn them, and they would break their way through the ring of men. In like manner, when, as sometimes happened, the Indians set up their lodges all about the herd, the buffalo might yet find a way to break through and escape.

If, however, all went well, and a good part of the herd was killed, there was great rejoicing all through the camp. Everybody was happy, since now, for some days, food would be abundant, and every one would have enough to eat; and there is nothing that the Indian dreads so much as hunger.

Later, after the Indians obtained horses and iron-pointed arrows, and, later still, repeating rifles, these old methods were all given up. It was easier to chase the buffalo on horseback, and their pack-horses gave them a ready means for bringing the spoils of the chase back to the camp. Now, too, they used the lance in hunting, driving the horse close up on the buffalo’s right side, holding the lance across the body, and, with a mighty two-handed thrust, sending the keen steel deep into the animal’s vitals.

Perhaps no more exciting scene could be witnessed than one of the old-time buffalo chases by the Indians. Naked themselves, they rode their naked horses, carrying their quivers of arrows on their backs or by their sides, and their bows in their hands. The good buffalo horses were swift of foot to catch the cow, admirably trained for running over the rough prairie, often dangerous from badger holes or burrows of the prairie dog, and knowing how to approach the buffalo, and also how to avoid its charge—trained, in fact, just as well as the cow-pony is trained, which knows exactly what is expected of him when he is cutting cattle out of a bunch. The chase was conducted in silence, and the only sound heard was the rumble of a thousand hoofs—dull where the ground was soft, and sharp if it hardened. If the herd was large, the scene was one of great confusion. Buffalo and horses with their riders were dimly seen amid the cloud of dust thrown up by the fleeing herd. Horses were constantly overtaking the buffalo, riders were bending down, horses were sheering off, buffalo were falling. The old bulls, passed by the swift riders, were turning off and fleeing, singly or in little groups, to right and to left, while the swifter cows, with heads down and tails in air, were pressing forward in flight to escape the Indians, who were riding with their rearmost ranks.

Not greatly differing from this, save that guns were used and there was much yelling and noise, were the hunts of the wild Red River half-breeds. These were pursued on horseback, and the men were armed with the old Hudson Bay smoothbore flint-lock guns. Powder was carried in a horn and balls in the mouth. When he had discharged his gun, the hunter poured the powder from the horn directly into the barrel, guessing at the quantity, slipped a ball from the mouth into the barrel, the gun was given a jar on the saddle to settle the load, a little priming was poured into the pan, and he was ready for another shot.

On such hunts the Red River half-breeds transported their families and their property almost entirely in the well-known Red River carts, each drawn by a single horse, and containing, besides a load of baggage, a woman and perhaps two or three children.

Besides these wholesale methods of taking buffalo, of course they were killed singly by men who crept close enough to them to drive even a stone-headed arrow deep enough into the sides to reach the life. Often, when the buffalo were in situations where it was impossible to approach them, men disguised as wolves crept in among the herd, and killed buffalo with their arrows. Catlin and others have described and figured this method of approach, which at the present day is traditional only among the Indians; yet an old friend, who died a few years ago, almost a hundred years old, has told me that he had many times killed buffalo in this way, either alone or in company with some Indian friend.

Indians and half-breeds alike preserved the flesh of the buffalo by drying it. The strips or wide flakes of meat were cut about one-quarter of an inch thick and hung on scaffolds exposed to sun and air. In a day or two the meat was thoroughly dried, when it was bent into proper lengths, and either tied in bundles or done up in parfleches. It was from this dried meat that the well-known pemmican was made. The dried meat was roasted over a fire of coals, and then broken up by pounding with sticks on a hide, or by pounding between two stones. This pulverized flesh was mixed with the melted fat of the buffalo, and after the whole mass had been thoroughly stirred, was packed in sacks made of buffalo skin, which were then sewed up with sinew, and as the mass gradually cooled the sack became hard, and would keep for a very long time.

The killing of buffalo, as described, was in no sense sport; instead, it was work of the hardest kind. The swift ride over the dry plains through the clouds of dust, the killing of the buffalo, and finally the cutting up of the animals was physical labor far harder than most of that performed by civilized man. Usually, the buffalo were killed far from water, and the severe work that the man had been doing and the summer heat made him very thirsty. It is not strange, then, that he slaked his thirst by devouring the liver, sprinkled with gall, or by eating raw the gelatinous nose of the buffalo.

The description of a butchering, given by Audubon in his “Missouri River Journal,” is very graphic, and is worth quoting here:—

“The moment that the buffalo is dead, three or four hunters, their faces and hands often covered with gunpowder, and with pipes lighted, place the animal on its belly, and, by drawing out each fore and hind leg, fix the body so that it cannot fall again; an incision is made near the root of the tail, immediately above the root in fact, and the skin cut to the neck, and taken off in the roughest manner imaginable, downward and on both sides at the same time. The knives are going in all directions, and many wounds occur in the hands and fingers, but are rarely attended to at this time. The pipe of one man has perhaps given out, and with his bloody hands he takes the one of his nearest companion, who has his own hands equally bloody. Now one breaks in the skull of the bull, and with bloody fingers draws out the hot brains and swallows them with peculiar zest; another has now reached the liver, and is gobbling down enormous pieces of it; while perhaps a third, who has come to the paunch, is feeding luxuriously on some—to me—disgusting-looking offal. But the main business proceeds. The flesh is taken off from the sides of the boss, or hump bones, from where these bones begin to the very neck, and the hump itself is thus destroyed. The hunters gave the name of ‘hump’ to the mere bones when slightly covered by flesh; and it is cooked, and is very good when fat, young, and well broiled. The pieces of flesh taken from the sides of these bones are called filets, and are the best portion of the animal when properly cooked. The forequarters, or shoulders, are taken off, as well as the hind ones, and the sides, covered by a thin portion of flesh, called the dÉpouillÉ, are taken out. Then the ribs are broken off at the vertebrÆ, as well as the boss bones. The marrow-bones, which are those of the fore and hind legs only, are cut out last. The feet usually remain attached to these; the paunch is stripped of its covering of layers of fat, the head and backbone are left to the wolves. The pipes are all emptied, the hands, faces, and clothes all bloody, and now a glass of grog is often enjoyed, as the stripping off the skin and flesh of three or four animals is truly very hard work.… When the wind is high, and the buffaloes run toward it, the hunters’ guns often snap, and it is during their exertions to replenish their pans that the powder flies and sticks to the moisture every moment accumulating on their faces; but nothing stops these daring and usually powerful men, who, the moment the chase is ended, leap from their horses, let them graze, and begin their butcher-like work.”

The Indian and the half-breed killed the buffalo for their support,—for food, clothing, shelter, and many of their implements. The civilized buffalo skinner exterminated it for its hides. There was another class which did something toward wiping out the buffalo, yet the numbers killed by them were inconsiderable in comparison with those killed for commercial purposes. This class comprised those who ran buffalo for sport. Buffalo-running was not a difficult art, nor especially exciting, except so far as it is exciting to chase and overtake some creature that is trying to escape. Provided a man had a good horse and was fairly accustomed to riding, there was little difficulty and little danger in the buffalo chase. At the same time, the combination of the swift ride, the rough country, the dust and dirt thrown up by the flying herd, and the close proximity of the great beasts have reduced many a buffalo runner on his first chase to a pitch of nervousness which made him do precisely the wrong thing. There have been cases, not a few, where riders, trying to kill buffalo with a pistol, have shot their own horses instead of the buffalo; and at least one case came to my knowledge where the excited hunter, riding up on the right instead of the left side of the bull, and shooting across his own body, managed to shoot himself in the left arm.

There was something rather exhilarating in the headlong ride after buffalo, a game not unlike “follow my leader,” which boys play, where the leader chooses the roughest and most difficult ground over which he can pass, and the follower is obliged to take the same route. But buffalo-hunting is now a sport of the distant past, and it is needless to speak of it at any length.

In the days of its abundance the buffalo was a most impressive species, and their enormous numbers have been a theme on which many writers have delighted to linger. Adjectives have failed them to describe the multitudes of buffalo seen, and it was not unusual for men to travel long distances among great herds, which made slow way for them as they passed along. Many calculations have been made of the numbers of buffalo seen at one time; but, after all, these can be little more than guesswork. Terms like thousands and millions, so commonly used, have little or no meaning, for we have no standard of comparison by which to measure them. All the earlier writers, however graphic their descriptions of their numbers, fail to impress the reader, because no one could comprehend such numbers except by seeing them. Dr. Allen, Mr. Hornaday, Colonel Dodge, and many of the old explorers, give much matter bearing on this subject. A few lines from the Journal of Alexander Henry give some idea of their numbers on the Red River. He says, under date of September 18, 1800: “I took my usual morning view from the top of my oak, and saw more buffalo than ever. They formed one body, commencing about half a mile from camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving slowly southward, and the meadow seemed as if in motion. This afternoon I rode a few miles up Park River. The few spots of wood along it have been ravaged by buffalo; none but the large trees are standing, the barks of which are rubbed perfectly smooth, and heaps of wool and hair lie at the foot of the trees. The small wood and brush are entirely destroyed, and even the grass is not permitted to grow in the points of the wood. The bare ground is more trampled by these cattle than the gate of the farm yard.”

Even in recent times one might journey for days at a time through herds, which to the eye seemed absolutely to cover a blackened prairie, and I myself have travelled for weeks through the Northwest without, at any time during the day, being out of sight of buffalo. How many millions there were in the great herds through which we used to pass, it is useless now to compute. They have all gone. But over a vast extent of the western country they have left memorials still visible and long to endure in the deep trails which furrow the prairie in all directions.

Other mementos still to be seen, and stirring the heart of the old-timer, though to the man of to-day they are without a meaning, are the huge erratic boulders which lie here and there over the prairie where they were dropped by the great ice mass in its passage down from the highland. Against such boulders the buffalo used to rub their bodies, and such masses of granite or of flinty quartzite, polished and with their sharp angles worn away by the rubbing against them of the tough hides, may often be seen. About such a rock, deep worn in the ground, is the trench, where the bulls and the cows and the younger animals once marched as they pushed their sides against the hard rock, their hoofs cutting the soil into fine dust to be blown away by the wind. The angles of these old rubbing-stones are still discolored by the grease left on them from the buffalo’s skins, and looking at them, one might fancy that they had been used only yesterday.

Here, then, are monuments of imperishable granite, fashioned by a race of dumb creatures, and telling to him who can read their sculpturing a long story of life and power and multitude forever gone. From earliest time man has set up all over the earth his enduring memorials to hold the wonder of later ages; but of the races of the beasts, which one has done this, save only the bison?

AMERICAN BISON

(Bos bison[6])

The great elevation of the forequarters, the mass of long hair clothing the head, shoulders, and fore part of the body, together with the peculiar form of the head and horns, the latter of which are cylindrical, serve at once to distinguish the bison from the other members of the ox tribe. Some of the points distinguishing the American bison from its European cousin are that the mass of hair on the fore quarters is longer, the form of the skull is different, the horns are shorter, thicker, blunter, and more sharply curved. In the skull of the American animal the sockets of the eyes have a more tubular form.

Height at shoulder about 6 feet; weight from 15 to 20 hundredweight; an adult bull weighed by W. T. Hornaday scaled 1727 pounds.

Distribution.—The greater portion of western North America, ascending to the Great Slave Lake, and descending to New Mexico and Texas; now nearly exterminated. American writers recognize two races (or species), the prairie bison (B. bison typicus) and the larger wood bison (B. bison athabascÆ) of the forest highlands of the northwest.

Measurements of Horns

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