Warning.—Visitors must _never_ stand close beside a wire fence or gate, because its elasticity between posts might enable a charging animal to strike a person so standing and inflict a serious injury, even though the fence or gate is not in the least affected by the blow. THE BISON RANGES, Nos. 51 and 52. Stretching from the Boston Road to the large Antelope House (No. 50), and from the Rocking Stone to the southern boundary, lies an open expanse of rolling meadow land, with a total area of about twenty acres. It is almost surrounded by shade-trees. Its easterly edge is a low-lying strip of rich meadow, which lies under the shelter of the rocky, tree-covered ridge that forms the natural retaining wall of the higher plateau toward the west. This is the Bison Range. It is the first enclosure seen on the left as the visitor enters the Park from West Farms by way of the Boston Road. On the north side of the main range, near the Rocking Stone, are the four corrals, and the Bison House. The latter is a rustic hillside barn, eighty feet in length, with a semicircular front, affording shelter and feed storage for thirty-four buffaloes. The flat roof of the Buffalo House is open to the public from the main walk, and has been specially designed as a convenient lookout over the main range and corrals. There are other corrals, and a shelter shed, at the Buffalo Entrance. [Illustration: EUROPEAN BISON: BULL.] The American Bison, or Buffalo, (_B. americanus_), is the largest and the best known of all North American hoofed animals. What was once the universal herd, which occupied the whole pasture region of the West, was cut in twain in 1867, by the building of the first trans-continental railway. The great “southern herd,” of several millions of animals, was destroyed by skin hunters during the years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874, and the practical extinction of the northern herd was accomplished between 1880 and 1884. At present there are but two herds of wild bison in existence. The largest band, now containing by estimate about 300 individuals, inhabits a wide stretch of barren and inhospitable territory southwest of Great Slave Lake. About twenty head remain in the Yellowstone Park, more than nine-tenths of the original herd having been slaughtered by poachers since 1890. There are now about 2000 bison alive in captivity, chiefly in large private game preserves. Usually bison calves are born in May, June, and July. Full maturity is not reached until the end of the seventh year, when the horns of the male—at first a straight spike—have attained their full semi-circular curve. Like all thick-haired animals of the temperate zone, the American bison sheds its coat in spring, and does not regain full pelage until October or November.