San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-03-11
TIE Daily tiqkt
THURSDAY, MARCH II, 1897.
THE BUFFALO REMNANT.
Interesting Account Of the Ante
lope Island Herd.
Fierce Fights Between the Males for
Supremacy - Singular Demonstra-
ton of the Survival of
the Fittest.

The herd of buffaloes to which wide
public attention has been drawn by
the recent tragic fate of one of its
bulls, has been grazing on Antelope
island for three years. 1t is owned by
the Island Improvement company,
which is composed of John Z. Dooly
and White & Sons. When Buffalo Bill
Glassman gave up his ambition to re-
plenish the west with the American
bison the improvement company took
the little herd he had gathered at Lake
Point and transported it to the island.
The Antelope range is admirably suit
ed to its wants, and on the nutritious
grasses Astounding there it has fed and
fattened. Though nominally in captiv-
ity, its freedom is only limited by the
water that surrounds the island,
and by the stout fences built to
protect the cultivated spots on
the range from being overrun.
Unlike the elk that swan away
from the island, the buffaloes have made
no effort to escape. Their domain is
large enough to satisfy their migra-
tory instinct. From end to end it is
nearly 80 miles, and at its widest point
it is six miles across. 1t has a surface
varied enough to suit the most adyen-
turous buffaloes; nature has provided
watering places in most convenient
spots; delightful depressions abound
in which the herd may wallow to its
hides content, and altogether An
telope is an ideal home for the semi-civ-
ilized bison.
The herd has grown over there, until
ROW it numbers nearly 20. Four calves
were born this year, and the interest
of visitors to the island is most ex-
cited by these shy young buffaloes. The
domestic affairs of the herd have I'M
dergone two upheavals during it's life
on Antelope. These experiences have
corroborsted the theory, disputed by
some buffalo authorities, that one bull
rules the herd, and that the question
of supremacy is settled from time to
time on the field of honor. The head
OF the family does not long enjoy his
championship in peace. Some young,
ambitious bull challenges him to
contest and the buffalo code requires
him to accept forthwith. He always
does, for his COWS are looking at him,
and even if he could remain among
them without fighting, which he could
not, he would henceforth be despised.
So he locks horns with his rebelliouS
antagonist, and the fight goes on to
a finish. Either the challenger is sub
dued or the reigning bull is driven from
the herd, and thereafter is an outcast.
The bull in command at the time the
herd was placed on the island was
driven out about a year later by fierce
young gallant, who held sway but
year. The struggle in which he was
defeated lasted two days, and then he,
too, became a wanderer. 1t was one of
those deposed bulls that was killed in
a recent desperate combat. The pres
ent king OF the herd is mammoth fell
low, one of the finest specimens of his
kind, but he will not be allowed to re-
main much longer unmolested in his
sovereignty. Already there are indi-
cations that the younger bulls are
growing FESTIVE under his rule, and one
OF them may any day rebel, and when
he does a struggle will follow that
will be worth encountering the perils
of q voyage to the battle-ground to see.
This system of rotation in Office is
theway the buffalo has Of applying the
principle of the survival of the fttest,
and Is held by philosophers to have
been designed to insure the vigor of
the offspring.
The disappearance from the plains
of the race of which this small bunch
is one of the few remnants was caused
by the greatest slaughter of wild an
finals the world has ever eeen. It has
been said by o sanr3cal expert that "oi
oil the quadrupeds that baTe lived upon
the earth probably no other species