The American bison or buffalo (Bos americanus) is now practically exterminated.
Two sentences from An Introduction to the Study of Mammals, by Sir W. H. Flower and Mr. R. Lydekker (London, 1891), put the case in a nutshell.
“The multitudes in which the American bison formerly existed are almost incredible; the prairies being absolutely black with them as far as the eye could reach, the numbers in the herds being reckoned by millions.”
With the completion of the Kansas Branch of the Pacific Railway in 1871, the extraordinarily careless and ruthless slaughter began. In less than ten years bison-shooting ceased to be profitable.
And now, “A herd of some two hundred wild individuals derived from the northern herd is preserved in the Yellowstone National Park; and it is believed that some five hundred of the race, known as Wood-Bison, exist in British territory; but with these exceptions this magnificent species is exterminated”.
A vivid account of the buffalo’s habits and of its rapid tragic extermination will be found in Mr. Grinell’s essay “In Buffalo Days” in American Big-Game Hunting (Boone and Crockett Club), edited by Th. Roosevelt and G. B. Grinell, Edinburgh, 1893.
See also Hornaday, The Extirpation of the American Bison, 1889, and a monograph by J. A. Allen, “The American Bisons, Living and Extinct”: Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, vol. iv., 1876.
[Note 19] p. 102.—Fighting-ruffs.
The ruff (Machetes pugnax) is in many ways a most interesting bird. Thus, there is the rapid change of plumage, as the result of which the male acquires his characteristic frill or ruff before the breeding season. The indefatigable pugnacity of the males, the efficacy of their shield, their assiduous polygamous courtship, their subsequent carelessness as to the fate of the reeve and her young, and their extraordinary “polymorphism”, are very remarkable. While the individual peculiarities of plumage are very marked, each ruff is true season after season to its own idiosyncrasy. Visitors to the National Museum of Natural History in London will remember a beautiful case of ruffs in the Entrance Hall.
[Note 20] p. 103.—Sky-goat.