Game Animals of America AMERICAN BISON

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

The American bison or buffalo (Bison americanus) because of its great size and imposing appearance, is the most celebrated of all American hoofed animals. It has been practically exterminated, but now that it is given adequate protection, the buffalo, which breeds rapidly in captivity, has been saved from total disappearance.

The buffalo was first seen by white men in Anahuac, the Aztec capital of Mexico, in 1521, when Cortez and his men paid their first visit to the menagerie of King Montezuma. It was first seen in its wild state by a shipwrecked Spanish sailor in southern Texas in 1530.

Once the buffalo roamed over fully one-third of the entire continent of North America. Not only did it inhabit the plains of the West, but also the hilly forests of the Appalachian region, the northern plains of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and even the bleak and barren plains of western Canada. The center of abundance, however, was the great plains lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi Valley.

In May, 1871, Col. R. I. Dodge drove for twenty-five miles along the Arkansas River through an unbroken herd of buffaloes. According to Dr. Hornaday’s calculation, he actually saw nearly half a million head. This was the great southern herd on its annual spring migration northward. Altogether it must have contained about three and a half million animals. In those days mighty hosts of buffaloes frequently stopped or even derailed railway trains, and obstructed the progress of boats on the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers.

When the Union Pacific railway was completed in 1869, the buffaloes were divided into a northern herd and a southern herd. By 1875 the southern herd had been practically annihilated. Five years later the completion of the Northern Pacific railway led to a grand attack upon the northern herd. Three years later this was almost entirely wiped out.

The future of the buffalo depends upon the National herds and ranges, of which the United States has six game preserves. In zoological parks this animal becomes sluggish and rapidly deteriorates from the vigorous standard of the wild stock.

The largest buffalo ever measured by a naturalist is the old bull which was shot by Dr. Hornaday on December 6, 1886, in Montana, and which now stands as the most prominent figure in the mounted group in the United States National Museum. This is the animal whose picture adorns the ten dollar bill of the United States currency. The height of this buffalo at the shoulders was 5 feet, 8 inches, and its length of head and body to the root of the tail was 10 feet, 2 inches. Its estimated weight was 2,100 pounds.

The buffalo begins to shed its faded and weather-beaten winter coat of hair in March. For the next three months he is a forlorn looking creature. By October, however, the new coat is well along, and in November and December the animal is at its best.

Buffalo calves are born in May and June. At first they are a brick red color, but this coat is usually shed in October.

The flesh of the buffalo very closely resembles domestic beef. In fact, it is impossible to distinguish the difference.

BASED ON MATERIAL DRAWN FROM “THE AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY,” COPYRIGHT 1904, BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY

ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 4. No. 13. SERIAL No. 113