48

42

ralists have not too soon become alive to the remarkable fact that those shaggy monarchs of
the prairie, the ponderous buffalo tribe, are well-nigh extinct. They have dwindles away
before the exterminating tread of the hunter and the march of the pioneer of civilization.
The prairie no longer shakes beneath the impetuous advance of the mighty herd, and even
individual specimens are becoming scarce. The representatives of the Smithsonian Museum
in America therefore sent out an expedition into the West in search of what buffaloes there
might be remaining, in order that the country might preserve some memento of the millions
of those animals which not many years ago roamed over the prairies. Twenty-five animals
in all were captured, six of which have been arranged in a group for exhibition. One
of the American papers describes this as the transference of a little bit of Montana--a small
square patch from the wildest part of the Wild West--to the National Museum. The idea is
one which is exactly applicable to COLONEL W. F. CODY's collection, which is approaching its
last days of residence among us. Those scenes in which the primeval forest and the vast
expanse of prairie are represented, with elk and bison careering about, cahsed by the hunter
and the scout, is a transference from the Wils West which, as we now learn, should be even
more interesting to the naturalist than it is to either the artistic or the historical student. We
entertained, independently of any instruction that may be afforded. These scenes, moreover,
are all the more interesting to the ethnological student because of the association with them
of the red men who have been indigenous to the prairies and their surroundings. The occu-
pation of Uncas, like Othello's, is gone; palatial buildings and busy streets have succeeded
to the wigwam and the hunting grounds, and the successor of Fenimore Cooper may find
his representative Indians, not where the hunting knife and tomahawk are needed, but in
the arena of mimic battle and adventure. The Indian is going out with the buffalo; mayhap
we shall ere long see the last of his descendants, with the contemplative gaze of Macaulay's
New Zealander, sitting before the group in the Smithsonian Museum, looking upon the last
representative of the extinct buffalo, fixed in its prairie-like surroundings. These considera-
tions of facts which force themselves upon the imagination, distincly enhance the interest of
those pictures from the Wild West presented with such force and realism by the ruling
genius who, anent the puport of these reflections, is so appropriately named "BUFFALO
BILL." In the course of a very short time these pictures will permanently vanish from
English soil, as they are to be produced in America soon, and it may be expected that those in
arrears in information respecting them, and who appreciate, as they deserve to be appreciated,
their instructive features, will give to them a concentrated attention ere it is too late.

A POSITION DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN.-- A "PLAINS CELEBRITY."-- A TITLE
IMPERISHABLE.

To gain great local and national fame as a "plains celebrity" in the days of old was
not an easy task; rather one of the most competitive struggles that a young man could
possibly engage in. The vast, comparatively unknown, even called Great American Desert
of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers
of the then Far West--Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc., born, raised,
and used to hardships and danger--and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers
of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent up natures, imbued with love of daring
adventure. Hundreds of men achieved local, and great numbers national fame for the pos-
session of every manly quality that goes to make up the romantic hero of that once dark and
bloody ground. When is brought to mind the work engaged in, the carving out of the
advance paths for the more domestically inclined settler, the dangers and excitements of
hunting and trapping of carrying dispatches, stage driving, freighting cargoes of immense
value, guiding successfully the immense wagaon trains, gold hunting--it is easy to conceive
what--class of sturdy, adventurous young spirits entered the arena to struggle in a daily,
deadly, dangerous game to win the "bubble reputation." When such an army of the best
human material battled for supremacy, individual distinction gained by the unwritten law of
unprejudiced popular promotion possessed a value that made its acquirer a "plains celebrity,"
stamped indelibly with an honored title rarely possessed unless fairly, openly, and justly won--
a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor with the friendship, fol-
lowing the admiration of the contestants. Thus Boone, Crockett, Carson, Beal, Fremont,
Cody, Bridger, Kinman, Hickok, Cosgrove, Comstock, Frank North, and others, will live in