Historic Manuscripts

Margaret Mary Meagher - The Bison of Yellowstone National Park
An historic 1973 manuscript by bison ecologist Mary Meagher on the life history of bison in Yellowstone.
(PDF- 4.2MB)

William T. Hornaday Ebook link to The Extermination of the American Bison
ftp://indian.cse.msu.edu/pub/mirrors/Gutenberg/1/7/7/4/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm
A personalized copy to Theodore Roosevelt of an historic 1886-87 manuscript by William T. Hornaday on the extirpation of the American bison from its native range.

“It is hoped that the following historical account of the discovery, partial utilization, and almost complete extermination of the great American bison may serve to cause the public to fully realize the folly of allowing all our most valuable and interesting American mammals to be wantonly destroyed in the same manner. The wild buffalo is practically gone forever, and in a few more years, when the whitened bones of the last bleaching skeleton shall have been picked up and shipped East for commercial uses, nothing will remain of him save his old, well-worn trails along the water-courses, a few museum specimens, and regret for his fate. If his untimely end fails even to point a moral that shall benefit the surviving species of mammals which are now being slaughtered in like manner, it will be sad indeed.” William T. Hornaday

The Extermination of the American Bison, William T. Hornaday, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, 1886-'87 Report of the National Museum, pages 369-548. EBook courtesy of The Project Cutenberg EBook.