Of the millions of buffalo which even in our own time ranged the plains in freedom, none now remain. From the prairies which they used to darken, the wild herds, down to the last straggling bull, have disappeared. In the Yellowstone National Park, protected from destruction by United States troops, are the only wild buffalo which exist within the borders of the United States. These are mountain buffalo, and, from their habit of living in the thick timber and on the rough mountain-sides, they are only now and then seen by visitors to the park. It is impossible to say just how many there are, but from the best information that I can get, based on the estimates of reliable and conservative men, I conclude that the number was not less than four hundred in the winter of 1891-92. Each winter or spring the government scout employed in the park sees one or more herds of these buffalo, and as such herds are usually made up in part of young animals and have calves with them, it is fair to assume that they are steadily, if slowly, increasing. The report of a trip made in January, 1892, speaks of four herds seen in the Hayden Valley, which numbered respectively 78, 50, 110, and 15. Besides these, a number of scattering groups were seen at a distance, which would bring the number up to three hundred.
In the far northwest, in the Peace River district, there may still be found a few wood buffalo. They are seldom killed, and the estimate of their numbers varies from five hundred to fifteen hundred. This cannot be other than the merest guess, since they are scattered over many thousand square miles of territory which is without inhabitants, and for the most part unexplored.
On the great plains is still found the buffalo skull half buried in the soil and crumbling to decay. The deep trails once trodden by the marching hosts are grass-grown now, and fast filling up. When these most enduring relics of a vanished race shall have passed away, there will be found, in all the limitless domain once darkened by their feeding herds, not one trace of the American buffalo.
George Bird Grinnell.
Nights with the Grizzlies
In this paper I propose to give an account of some experience with the grizzly bear in the summer and fall of 1885. Here let me correct some impressions prevailing among sportsmen from the East as to the proper time to hunt this animal. As detailed in the sporting papers, one sportsman hunting late in the fall finds them at the timber-line, and having some success and basing his opinion upon statements of his guide, is satisfied that is the only place to find them, and that you must stealthily follow the trail through dense timber, as he did. Another sportsman finds them below the foot-hills among the Bad Lands, and thinks that is the proper locality; and so each one is governed by his own particular good luck and experience. This reminds me of the heated controversy that agitated some of the readers of one of the sporting papers a few years since as to the color of the jack-rabbit of the plains: one party contending they were gray and the opposing party that they were white, each party citing his own restricted experience with that fleet-footed animal. To those having more extended observation it was plain that each side was to a certain extent right as well as wrong, for it is well known that the jack-rabbit is gray during summer and fall and turns white in the winter, and then again sheds his white coat in spring: at least this is the case in Wyoming and Montana.
So with the grizzly. He is essentially an omnivorous animal: his food varying with each season and the locality where such food is obtained, his habitat varies accordingly. He lies in his winter bed until routed out by the melting of the winter snow, and the ground being still frozen, he has to rustle for his grub. He soon becomes poor from the necessity of much traveling around for old carcasses and whatever food comes handy. He is then usually in the foot-hills. In the summer his food is more vegetable—grass, roots, plants, etc. His haunt is then on the highest mountain plateaus, where he does a great deal of rooting in a certain kind of loose rock and loam. In the last of summer, berries are ripe, and he is then found below the foot-hills, and in the Bad Lands, or wherever chokeberries, plums, bulberries, etc., are found. In the fall he craves animal food, and is then found high up in the foot-hills, or again on the mountain plateaus, wherever game is most abundant; and in November and December he seeks his winter quarters. These remarks do not apply to grizzly bears that are found in the Bad Lands bordering the Missouri or the Lower Yellowstone, as they live there the entire year, "holing up" in winter in the bluffs of those desolate-looking regions.
The intellect and intelligence of the grizzly bear are not fully appreciated. Strip him of his hide, stand him erect on his hind feet, stick a plug hat on his upper end, and he resembles in anatomy and general appearance that "noblest work of God"—man: a little too long-bodied, neck a little short, but otherwise, looking at the muscles of his thighs and forearm, a veritable athlete. Re-clothe him in his fur, place him on his all fours, watch him rooting around for grubs and worms and carrion, and wallowing in mud and filth, and he resembles in apparent stupidity and habits the lowest type of animal—the hog. Yet those well acquainted with his characteristics will, I think, agree with me that in intelligence and perhaps even in intellect he is not many grades in the process of evolution below man.