[Note 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.] If ever thoughtless people were punished for their reckless improvidence, the Indians and half-breeds of the Northwest Territory are now paying the penalty for the wasteful slaughter of the buffalo a few short years ago. The buffalo is his own avenger, to an extent his remorseless slayers little dreamed he ever could be. VII. PRESERVATION OF THE SPECIES FROM ABSOLUTE EXTINCTION. There is reason to fear that unless the United States Government takes the matter in hand and makes a special effort to prevent it, the pure-blood bison will be lost irretrievably through mixture with domestic breeds and through in-and-in breeding. The fate of the Yellowstone Park herd is, to say the least, highly uncertain. A distinguished Senator, who is deeply interested in legislation for the protection of the National Park reservation, has declared that the pressure from railway corporations, which are seeking a foot-hold in the park, has become so great and so aggressive that he fears the park will "eventually be broken up." In any such event, the destruction of the herd of park buffaloes would be one of the very first results. If the park is properly maintained, however, it is to be hoped that the buffaloes now in it will remain there and increase indefinitely. As yet there are only two captive buffaloes in the possession of the Government, viz, those in the Department of Living Animals of the National Museum, presented by Hon. E. G. Blackford, of New York. The buffaloes now in the Zoological Gardens of the country are but few in number, and unless special pains be taken to prevent it, by means of judicious exchanges, from time to time, these will rapidly deteriorate in size, and within a comparatively short time run out entirely, through continued in-and-in breeding. It is said that even the wild aurochs in the forests of Lithuania are decreasing in size and, in number from this cause. With private owners of captive buffaloes, the temptations to produce cross-breeds will be so great that it is more than likely the breeding of pure-blood buffaloes will be neglected. Indeed, unless some stockman like Mr. C. J. Jones takes particular pains to protect his full blood buffaloes, and keep the breed absolutely pure, in twenty years there will not be a pure-blood animal of that species on any stock farm in this country. Under existing conditions, the constant tendency of the numerous domestic forms is to absorb and utterly obliterate the few wild ones.