Extinction Of The Bison

In a wild state, the American bison or buffalo, is practlcally, thought nn quite wholly, extinct. At the presen moment there are about two hundrec wild buffaloos alive and on foot in the United States. To obtain these hig) figures we inolude the one hundred an tifty individuals that white head-hun ters and red meat-hunters have thus far left alive in the Yellowstone park posed to be protected from slaughter Eiesides these, there are only two othei bunehes: one of about twenty head in Lot park, Colorado, protected by state laws; and another, containing between thirty and forty head, in Val Verda county, Texas, between Devil's rtver and the Rio Grande. Four years ago there were over three hundred heac in the Yellowstone park, thriving and inereaslng quite satlsfactorily. Through them we fondly hoped the species would even yet be saved from absolute extlnction. But, alas! we were reckoning without the poachers. Congress provides pay for just one sofitary scout to guard In winter 3,575 square miles of rugged mountain country against the horde of lawless white men and Indlans who surround the park on all slde, eager to kill the last buffalo! The poachers have been hard at work. and as a result our park herd has recentely decreased more than onehalf in number. It Is a buraing shame that formerly, through lack of congressional law adequately to punlsh such poachers as the wretch who was actually caught red-handed In January, 1S94, whlle ski nn Ing seven dead buffaloes! and now, through lack of a paltry Í1.800 a year to pay four more scouts, the park buffaloes are all doomed to certain and speedy destructlon. Bestdes the places mentloned, there is only one other spot lnlill North America that contalns wild buffaloes. Immediately southwestward of Oreat Slave lake there lies a vast wildernes of swamps and stunted pines, lnto whicli no white man has ever penetrated far, und where the red man still reigns supreme. It is bounded on the north by the Liard and Mackenzie rlvers, on the east by the Slave river, on the south by the Peace rlver, and on the west by the Rocky mountalns. Mr. Warburton Pike says it is now the greatest beaver country in the world, and that it also contains a few bands of the so-called wood buffalo. "Sometlmes they are heard of at Forts Smith and Vermillion, sometimes at Fort St. John, on the Peace river, and occasionally at Fort Nelson. on the Liard; . . . but it is impossible to say anything about their numbers." At all events, in February, 1X!)O, Mr. Pike found eight buffaloes only four liays' travel from Fort Resolution, on Great Slave lake, and succeeded in killing; one. The Canadian authorities cstimate the total number in that regiun at three hundred.