File:The continent we live on (1961) (20684720685).jpg

Title: The continent we live on
Identifier: continentweliveo00sandrich (find matches)
Year: 1961 (1960s)
Authors: Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
Subjects: Physical geography; Natural history
Publisher: New York : Random House
Contributing Library: New College of California
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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tiison oj a Kina inai once preserved the prairies by 'mowing" its grass from Alberta to lex from Illinois to Montana. Facing page: Portrait of a bull bison. their taloned feet, and clobber the little rodents as they bumble about chewing grass stems. There are other parties to the construction and maintenance of the prairies. Perhaps most notable among these are the gallinaceous birds—the Prairie Chicken, and the Sharp-tailed Grouse, that preposterous strutter. These game birds once lived in great numbers, each in its own appointed and rather special- ized place, on the endless plains of the Prairie Belt. They had their own stamping grounds, and they, in turn, were the basis of still another natural economy. Their multitudes maintained the coyotes and the skunks. PRAIRIE OX AND PRONGHORN 'ANTELOPE" As we have said, the prairies were originally dependent upon two animals—the little Prairie Dog and the mighty Bison. The latter is a large ox, one of a group of similar beasts that once roamed much of the northern hemisphere. There was, until recently, a very large species in Alaska that had enormous spreading horns: and there are still a handful of living individ- uals of a European species known as the Wisent, now all in confinement. Bison once roamed from the spruce forests of the Canadian Lakes District to central Mexico and from the Rockies to the eastern seaboard. There is now evidence that they even inhabited the prairies of the Pacific coastal lowlands. Of the several species once extant, only two remain today, the Wood- land Bison of the Great Slave Lake area which we have already mentioned, and the Plains Bison or "buffalo." As everybody knows, this animal was living by the millions all over the central part of the continent when the white man first arrived, but by the beginning of this century they were headed for, and once were very near to, total extinction. However, a group of public-spirited citizens banded together into a society for their protection, and as a result the remnants were gathered together and set out in suitable reservations, and their breeding was carefully watched. They have now made a rather fine recovery, but they will never regain their past glory simply because their country—principally the Great Prairies—has gone forever. The Bison herds used once to drift all over the prairielands. They often traveled in almost countless lines, single file, that reached from horizon to horizon; and the trails their great hoofs 156

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