Passaic City record., 1893-01-14

imals. A barbed wire fence limits their
wanderings, and group of whooping
cowboys, mounted on branded ponies,
rounds them up morning and night into
a corral, where the curious are permitted
to view them at twenty five cents view.
They are American bison, curiosities
even in that Western city and on those
hills which only few years ago shook
with the tread of the mighty armies OF
their ancestors.
There are sixty in the herd, and
Jumbo is the monarch. Plainsmen,
who hare slaughtered his kinsmen by
the hundred, say they never saw a finer
animal. He weighs 5000 pounds, his
brown beard nearly sweeps the ground !;
his strong, black horns are almost lost
in magnificent crest of silky brown
hair, and his shoulders are level with
the head of tall man. s'Devilish
Dick as be is called, is almost as fine a
specimen, but there is vicious CLEAN in
his eyes which prevents very close in
spection of his points. Four years ago
one Of the cowboys came little too
near this tremendous brute, and one sud-
den toss of the massive head sent the
cowboy to the country where there are
not supposed to be buffaloes.
This is the &. Jones herd of buf-
faloes, one of the few melancholy rem
nants of the millions that once swarmed
over the plains, and almost the only
hope of the perpetuation of the species.
Forty years ago it would have been as
easy to number the leaves OF the forest
as to calculate the strength of the vast
of bison which swarmed over all the
Western plains and hills, from the Mis-
sissippi to the Pacific and from Canada
to the Gulf. Of all the quadrupeds ever
inhabiting the earth, naturalists tell US,
no one species ever marshalled such in
Vulnerable armies as did the American
bison. AS late as 1871 it is estimated
that there were in the great Southern
herd, which covered the country south
of the line of the Union Pacific Railway,
between 8, 200, 900 and 4,00U, 900 head.
In that year the railroads penetrated the
country, and the systematic slaughter
began.
The report of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion gives these figures for the s.hunt-
ing" for the three following years:
In 1872 white hunters killed l, 491, ,489
buffaloes and utilized the hides of 497,-
1853. In 1878 the number slaughtered
was 1,508, 65S and the number used was
754, ,329. In 1874 only 15S, 5S3 were
killed and 1868 were used. OF the
gigantic army of 3,15S,730 butchered
by white men during these three years
over half were left lying untouched
where they fell.
To-day even the bones which whitened
the plains for miles have disappeared,
and there is not known to survive sim
gle specimen IN wild state.
In 1887 there was herd of 200 under
Government protection ar Yellowstone
Park. There may be few there now,
but none have been seen for year or
more, and they are supposed to have
been killed off.
Besides the Omaha herd there are
few others; in captivity, some kept for
breeding purposes and Others for exhibi-
tion. Mr. Charles Allard, in the Flat
head Indian Reservation, has thirty seven
head. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
numbers among its attractions herd of
thirteen buffaloes. subject to many
dangers from disease and accident that
very little can be hoped from it in the