The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-05-30
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GAME.


nearly as unparalleled as the rapid disappear
ance of our game animals One hundred
years ago Eastern North America was the
finest game country in the world. This
valley is hunters paradise, says Colonel
Boone in his account of the expedition to the
mouth of the Kentucky river Our dogs
started three troops of deer in less than half
an hour; ON the river we saw tracks of elk,
bears and buffalo, and the thickets along the
slope were full of turkeys and mountain
pheasants From the cliffs above the junction
our guide showed us the wigwams of the
Miamis About eight miles to the north
west we could see the smoke of their camp
fires rising from the foot of a rocky bluff, but
the hill country in the east and the great
plains in the west, north and northeast, re-
sembled a boundless ocean of undulating
woodlands
Northwest of the Blue Ridge buffaloes
grazed in countless herds. During the heat
of the midsummer months they used to re-
treat to the highlands, and followed the
ridges in the southwark migration as the ap
proach of winter gradually crowned the
heights with snow. Along the backbones of
all the main chains of the sunken Alleghenies
these trails can still be distinctly traced for
hundreds of miles. Buffalo Springs, Buff
falo Gap and scores of similar names still at
test the former presence of the American
bison in localities that are now fully 1000
miles from the next buffalo range. The Gen.
tire of our buffalo population is moving north
west at an alarming rate Herds, in the old
time sense of the word, can now be found
only in British North America and here and
there along the frontier of our Northwestern
Territory In cold weather small troops of
fifteen or twenty are occasionally seen in the
Texas Panhandle in Western Utah, and in
the valley of the Upper Arkansas, but nowhere
on this side of the Mississippi. Their days
are numbered. They cannot hide, and their
defensive weapons are useless against mounted
rifiemen. Pot-hunters follow them to their
far northern retreats the International rail
road will soon carry swarm OF sportsmen to
their West Mexican reservations, and in fifty
years from now their happy pasture grounds
will probably be reduced to the inclosed
grass-plots of few geological gardens.
''Panthers are still found in twenty six or
twenty-seven states, but chiefly at the two OPP
posite ends of our territory-in Florida and
Oregon. In the Southern Alleghenies they
are still freqdent enough to make the Govern
ment bounty source of income to the hun
tiers of several highland counties Wolves
still defy civilization in some of the larger
prairie states, and in the wild border country
between North Carolina and East Tennessee.
But unlike panthers, they do not confine
themselves to a special locality. Hunger
makes them peripatetic, and in cold winters
their occasional visits can be looked for in
almost any mountain valley between Southern
Kentucky and Alabama"
The following inscription will be placed on
Charles Reade's tombstone 1t was written by
himself:
Here Lie,
By the Side of his Beloved Friend, the Nor
tai Remains of
CHARLES READE,
Dramatist, Novelist and Journalist,
His last Words to Mankind are on this Stone
l hope for resurrection, not from any power
in nature, but from the will of the Lord God
Omnipotent, who made nature and me. He
created man out of nothing which nature
could not HIS can restore man from the
dust, which nature cannot. And I hope for
holiness and happiness in future life, not
for anything have said or done in this body,
but from the merits and mediation of Jesus
Christ. He has promised His intercession to
all who seek it, and He will not break His
word that intercession once granted, cannot
be rejected; for He is God, and His merits
infnite a mans sins are but human and
finite. Him that cometh to me, will in
no wise cast out" ''If any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
Righteous, and He is the Precipitation for our
SINS"
TE IT!