III The Mounted Group in the National Museum
The result of the Smithsonian expedition for bison which appeals most strongly to the general public is the huge group of six choice specimens of both sexes and all ages, mounted with natural surroundings, and displayed in a superb mahogany case. The dimensions of the group are as follows: Length, 16 feet; width, 12 feet, and height, 10 feet. The subjoined illustration is a very fair representation of the principal one of its four sides, and the following admirable description (by Mr. Harry P. Godwin), from the Washington Star of March 10, 1888, is both graphic and accurate:
A SCENE FROM MONTANA—SIX OF MR. HORNADAY’S BUFFALOES FORM A PICTURESQUE GROUP—A BIT OF THE WILD WEST REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM—SOMETHING NOVEL IN THE WAY OF TAXIDERMY—REAL BUFFALO-GRASS, REAL MONTANA DIRT, AND REAL BUFFALOES.
A little bit of Montana—a small square patch from the wildest part of the wild West—has been transferred to the National Museum. It is so little that Montana will never miss it, but enough to enable one who has the faintest glimmer of imagination to see it all for himself—the hummocky prairie, the buffalo-grass, the sage-brush, and the buffalo. It is as though a little group of buffalo that have come to drink at a pool had been suddenly struck motionless by some magic spell, each in a natural attitude, and then the section of prairie, pool, buffalo, and all had been carefully cut out and brought to the National Museum. All this is in a huge glass case, the largest ever made for the Museum. This case and the space about it, at the south end of the south hall, has been inclosed by high screens for many days while the taxidermist and his assistants have been at work. The finishing touches were put on to-day, and the screens will be removed Monday, exposing to view what is regarded as a triumph of the taxidermist’s art. The group, with its accessories, has been prepared so as to tell in an attractive way to the general visitor to the Museum the story of the buffalo, but care has been taken at the same time to secure an accuracy of detail that will satisfy the critical scrutiny of the most technical naturalist.
The Accessories
The pool of water is a typical alkaline water-hole, such as are found on the great northern range of bison, and are resorted to for water by wild animals in the fall when the small streams are dry. The pool is in a depression in the dry bed of a coulée or small creek. A little mound that rises beside the creek has been partially washed away by the water, leaving a crumbling bank, which shows the strata of the earth, a very thin layer of vegetable soil, beneath a stratum of grayish earth, and a layer of gravel, from which protrude a fossil bone or two. The whole bank shows the marks of erosion by water. Near by the pool a small section of the bank has fallen. A buffalo trail passes by the pool in front. This is a narrow path, well beaten down, depressed, and bare of grass. Such paths were made by herds of bison all over their pasture region as they traveled down water-courses, in single file, searching for water. In the grass some distance from the pool lie the bleaching skulls of two buffalo who have fallen victims to hunters who have cruelly lain in wait to get a shot at the animals as they come to drink. Such relics, strewn all over the plain, tell the story of the extermination of the American bison. About the pool and the sloping mound grow the low buffalo-grass, tufts of tall bunch-grass and sage-brush, and a species of prickly pear. The pool is clear and tranquil. About its edges is a white deposit of alkali. These are the scenic accessories of the buffalo group, but they have an interest almost equal to that of the buffaloes themselves, for they form really and literally a genuine bit of the West. The homesick Montana cowboy, far from his wild haunts, can here gaze upon his native sod again; for the sod, the earth that forms the face of the bank, the sage-brush, and all were brought from Montana—all except the pool. The pool is a glassy delusion, and very perfect in its way. One sees a plant growing beneath the water, and in the soft, oozy bottom, near the edge, are the deep prints made by the fore feet of a big buffalo bull. About the soft, moist earth around the pool, and in the buffalo trail are the foot-tracks of the buffalo that have tramped around the pool, some of those nearest the edge having filled with water.
The Six Buffaloes
The group comprises six buffaloes. In front of the pool, as if just going to drink, is the huge buffalo bull, the giant of his race, the last one that was secured by the Smithsonian party in 1888, and the one that is believed to be the largest specimen of which there is authentic record. Near by is a cow eight years old, a creature that would be considered of great dimensions in any other company than that of the big bull. Near the cow is a suckling calf, four months old. Upon the top of the mound is a “spike” bull, two and a half years old; descending the mound away from the pool is a young cow three years old, on one side, and on the other a male calf a year and a half old. All the members of the group are disposed in natural attitudes. The young cow is snuffing at a bunch of tall grass; the old bull and cow are turning their heads in the same direction apparently, as if alarmed by something approaching; the others, having slaked their thirst, appear to be moving contentedly away. The four months’ old calf was captured alive and brought to this city. It lived for some days in the Smithsonian grounds, but pined for its prairie home, and finally died. It is around the great bull that the romance and main interest of the group centers.
It seemed as if Providence had ordained that this splendid animal, perfect in limb, noble in size, should be saved to serve as a monument to the greatness of his race, that once roamed the prairies in myriads. Bullets found in his body showed that he had been chased and hunted before, but fate preserved him for the immortality of a Museum exhibit. His vertical height at the shoulders is 5 feet 8 inches. The thick hair adds enough to his height to make it full 6 feet. The length of his head and body is 9 feet 2 inches, his girth 8 feet 4 inches and his weight is, or was, about 1,600 pounds.
The Taxidermist’s Object Lessons
This group, with its accessories, is, in point of size, about the biggest thing ever attempted by a taxidermist. It was mounted by Mr. Hornaday, assisted by Messrs. J. Palmer and A. H. Forney. It represents a new departure in mounting specimens for museums. Generally such specimens have been mounted singly, upon a flat surface. The American mammals, collected by Mr. Hornaday, will be mounted in a manner that will make each piece or group an object lesson, telling something of the history and the habits of the animal. The first group produced as one of the results of the Montana hunt comprised three coyotes. Two of them are struggling, and one might almost say snarling, over a bone. They do not stand on a painted board, but on a little patch of soil. Two other groups designed by Mr. Hornaday, and executed by Mr. William Palmer, are about to be placed in the Museum. One of these represents a family of prairie-dogs. They are disposed about a prairie-dog mound. One sits on its haunches eating; others are running about. Across the mouth of the burrow, just ready to disappear into it, is another one, startled for the moment by the sudden appearance of a little burrowing owl that has alighted on one side of the burrow. The owl and the dog are good friends and live together in the same burrow, but there appears to be strained relations between the two for the moment.
Footnotes.
1 Davis’ Spanish Conquest of New Mexico. 1869. P. 67.
2 The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico. Davis. 1869. Pp. 206-7.
3 Purchas: His Pilgrimes. (1625.) Vol. IV, p. 1765. “A letter of Sir Samuel Argoll touching his Voyage to Virginia, and actions there. Written to Master Nicholas Hawes, June, 1613.”
4 Westover Manuscript. Col. William Byrd. Vol. I, p. 178.
5 Vol. II, pp. 24, 25.
6 Ib., p. 28.
7 Charles Burr Todd’s “Story of Washington,” p. 18. New York, 1889.
8 Long’s Expedition to the Source of the St. Peter’s River, 1823, II, p. 26.
9 Coll. Georgia Hist. Soc., I, p. 117.
10 Ibid., I, p. 51.
11 Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, B. F. French, 1869, first series, p. 2.
12 Ibid., pp. 88-91.
13 Hist. Coll. of Louisiana and Florida, French, second series, p. 58.
14 Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State, p. 484.
15 The American Bisons, Living and Extinct, p. 132.
16 The American Bisons, pp. 129-130.
17 Sabine, Zoological Appendix to “Franklin’s Journey,” p. 668.
18 Fauna Boreali-Americana, vol. 1, p, 279-280.
19 American Naturalist, xi, p. 624.
20 J. A. Allen’s American Bisons, p. 107.
21 All who are especially interested in the life history of the buffalo, both scientific and economical, will do well to consult Mr. Allen’s monograph, “The American Bisons, Living and Extinct,” if it be accessible. Unfortunately it is a difficult matter for the general reader to obtain it. A reprint of the work as originally published, but omitting the map, plates, and such of the subject-matter as relates to the extinct species, appears in Hayden’s “Report of the Geological Survey of the Territories,” for 1875 (pp. 443-587), but the volume has for several years been out of print.
The memoir as originally published has the following titles:
Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Kentucky.| N. S. Shaler, Director.| Vol. I. Part II.|—| The American Bisons,| living and extinct.| By J. A. Allen.| With twelve plates and map.|—| University press, Cambridge:| Welch, Bigelow & Co.| 1876.
Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology,| at Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.| Vol. IV. No. 10.|—| The American Bisons,| living and extinct.| By J. A. Allen.| Published by permission of N. S. Shaler, Director of the Kentucky| Geological Survey.| With twelve plates and a map.| University press, Cambridge:| Welch, Bigelow & Co.| 1876.|
4to., pp. i-ix, 1-246, 1 col’d map, 12 pl., 13 ll. explanatory, 2 wood-cuts in text.
These two publications were simultaneous, and only differed in the titles. Unfortunately both are of greater rarity than the reprint referred to above.
22 Lewis and Clark’s Exped., II, p. 395.
23 On the plains of Dakota, the Rev. Mr. Belcourt (Schoolcraft’s N. A. Indians, IV, p. 108) once counted two hundred and twenty-eight buffaloes, a part of a great herd, feeding on a single acre of ground. This of course was an unusual occurrence with buffaloes not stampeding, but practically at rest. It is quite possible also that the extent of the ground may have been underestimated.
24 Plains of the Great West, p. xvi.
25 Catlin’s North American Indians, II, p. 13.
26 Our captive had, in some way, bruised the skin on his forehead, and in June all the hair came off the top of his head, leaving it quite bald. We kept the skin well greased with porpoise oil, and by the middle of July a fine coat of black hair had grown out all over the surface that had previously been bare.
27 North American Indians, I, 255.
28 Plains of the Great West, pp. 124, 125.
29 Quadrupeds of North America, vol. II, pp. 38, 39.
30 In testimony whereof the following extract from a letter written by General Stewart Van Vliet, on March 10, 1897, to Professor Baird, is of interest:
“MY DEAR PROFESSOR: On the receipt of your letter of the 6th instant I saw General Sheridan, and yesterday we called on your taxidermist and examined the buffalo bull he is setting up for the Museum. I don’t think I have ever seen a more splendid specimen in my life. General Sheridan and I have seen millions of buffalo on the plains in former times. I have killed hundreds, but I never killed a larger animal than the one in the possession of your taxidermist.”
31 Quadrupeds of North America, vol. II, p. 44.
32 Plains of the Great West, p. 144.
33 Red River, Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition, II p. 104-105.
34 Plains of the Great West, p. 144-147.
35 Foot-note by William Blackmore: “The author is in error here, as in a point of the Tarryall range of mountains, between Pike’s Peak and the South Park, in the autumn of 1871, two mountain buffaloes were killed in one afternoon. The skin of the finer was presented to Dr. Frank Buckland.”
36 North American Indians, vol. I, p. 249, 250.
37 In the District of Columbia work-house we have a counterpart of this in the public bath-tub, wherein forty prisoners were seen by a Star reporter to bathe one after another in the same water!
38 Travels in America in 1806. London, 1808.
39 On page 248 of his “North American Indians,” vol. I, Mr. Catlin declares pointedly that “these animals are, truly speaking, gregarious, but not migratory; they graze in immense and almost incredible numbers at times, and roam about and over vast tracts of country from east to west and from west to east as often as from north to south, which has often been supposed they naturally and habitually did to accommodate themselves to the temperature of the climate in the different latitudes.” Had Mr. Catlin resided continuously in any one locality on the great buffalo range, he would have found that the buffalo had decided migratory habits. The abundance of proof on this point renders it unnecessary to eater fully into the details of the subject.
40 Our Wild Indians, p. 283, et seq.
41 American Field, July 24, 1886, p. 78.
42 Plains of the Great West, p. 125.
43 By the Red River half-breeds only.
44 On one occasion, which is doubtless still remembered with bitterness by many a Crow of the Custer Agency, my old friend Jim McNaney backed his horse Ogalalla against the horses of the whole Crow tribe. The Crows forthwith formed a pool, which consisted of a huge pile of buffalo robes, worth about $1,200, and with it backed their best race-horse. He was forthwith “beaten out of sight” by Ogalalla, and another grievance was registered against the whites.
45 Schoolcraft’s History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, iv, p. 107.
46 Westover MSS., i, p. 172.
47 Quoted by Professor Allen, “American Bisons,” p. 107.
48 The American Bison, p. 197.
49 For a full account of Mr. Wickliffe’s experiments, written by himself, see Audubon and Bachman’s “Quadrupeds of North America,” vol. ii, pp. 52-54.
50 On nearly all the great cattle ranches of the United States it is absolutely impossible, and is not even attempted.—W. T. H.
51 In summing up the total number of buffaloes and mixed-breeds now alive in captivity, I have been obliged to strike an average on this lot of calves “mixed and pure,” and have counted twelve as being of pure breed and five mixed, which I have reason to believe is very near the truth.
52 Plains of the Great West, p. 127.
53 North American Indians, I, pp. 25-26.
54 Red River Settlement, p. 256.
55 Schoolcraft’s “North American Indians,” 108.
56 Schoolcraft, pp. 101-110.
57 Ocean to Ocean, p. 116.
58 Assinniboine and Saskatch. Exp. Exped., II, p. 111.
59 Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition, p. 358.
60 H. Mis. 600, pt. 2-31
61 North American Indians, I, 253.
62 Travels in America in 1806. London, 1808.
63 North American Indians, I, p. 263.
64 Plains of the Great West, p. 134.
65 North American Indians, I, 256.
66 Plains of the Great West, pp. 139-144.
67 As an instance of this, see Forest and Stream, vol. II, p. 184: “Horace Jones, the interpreter here [Fort Sill], says that on his first trip along the line of the one hundredth meridian, in 1859, accompanying Major Thomas—since our noble old general—they passed continuous herds for over 60 miles, which left so little grass behind them that Major Thomas was seriously troubled about his horses.”
68 It is to be noted that hairless hides, taken from buffaloes killed in summer, are what the writer refers to. It was not until 1881, when the end was very near, that hunting buffalo in summer as well as winter became a wholesale business. What hunting can be more disgraceful than the slaughter of females and young in summer, when skins are almost worthless.
69 Congressional Globe (Appendix), second session Forty-second Congress.
70 Congressional Globe, April 6, 1872, Forty-second Congress, second session.
71 Congressional Record, vol. 2, part 1, Forty-third Congress, p. 371.
72 Congressional Record, vol. 2, part 3, Forty-third Congress, first session, pp. 2105, 2109.
73 I know of no greater affront that could be offered to the intelligence of a genuine buffalo-hunter than to accuse him of not knowing enough to tell the sex of a buffalo “on the run” by its form alone.—W. T. H.
74 Congressional Globe, Vol. 2, part 6, Forty-third Congress, first session.
75 Forty-fourth Congress, first session, vol. 4, part 2, pp. 1237-1241.
76 Forty-fourth Congress first session, vol. 4, part 1, p. 773.
77 It was the Cree Indians who used to practice impounding buffaloes, slaughtering a penful of two hundred head at a time with most fiendish glee, and leaving all but the very choicest of the meat to putrefy.
78 It is indeed an unbounded satisfaction to be able to now record the fact that this important task, in which every American citizen has a personal interest, is actually to be undertaken. Last year we could only way it ought to be undertaken. In its accomplishment, the Government expects the co-operation of private individuals all over the country in the form of gifts of desirable living animals, for no government could afford to purchase all the animals necessary for a great Zoological Garden, provide for their wants in a liberal way, and yet give the public free access to the collection, as is to be given to the National Zoological Park.
79 This specimen is now the commanding figure of the group of buffalo which has recently been placed on exhibition in the Museum.
80 Caught alive, but died in captivity July 26, 1886, and now in the mounted group.