1898] Prince — The Vanished Buffalo. 77 



Fortunately we found the herd leisurely feeding in the open 

 not very far away from the farm buildings. They had been 

 rejoined by the two animals which we had disturbed, but the 

 whole herd were coming in for water. 



There they stood like great bronze monsters statuesquely 

 surmounting a slight eminence on the grassy plain. It is diffi- 

 cult to accurately describe the impression produced upon the 

 spectator when he first beholds a living buffalo. Something of 

 sentrmenf'will naturally mingle with his thoughts, but apart 

 from the feeling that he is beholding one of the last of a tribe 

 of noble game, practically extinct, he is awed by the massive 

 uncouthness of the animals. Uncouth and monstrous they are, 

 yet noble and grand. A fine specimen of an adult lion in life 

 never fails to impress the spectator, but he realises that it is a 

 huge cat, a gigantic type of a familiar mammal. The buffalo 

 recalls no other animal with which the spectator is acquainted. 

 It is a wholly unfamiliar form, and unlike any other creature 

 which the observer has seen before. For myself I had a feeling 

 akin to that experienced when I have discovered upon some 

 leafy branch a huge caterpillar rearing its bushy head in proud de- 

 fiance—a strange delight and curiosity. The buffalo struck me as 

 resembling in some features a bull, in others a lion, in others a bear, 

 in others a colossal mule, yet really unlike any of them. His 

 limbs resemble the first ; his mane, the second ; his dark furry 

 head and cheeks, the third ; his body and tail, the last-named. 

 The combination is a grotesque one, yet it is not wholly fanci- 

 ful, and I was interested recently to find in Hornaday's report 

 on the buffalo, a quotation from a writer in 1724, who gives his 

 impression in these words : " a wonderful combination of diverse 

 animals. It has the crooked shoulders with bunch on its back 

 like a camel, its flanks dry and tail large, and its neck well covered 

 with hair like a lion. It is cloven-footed, its head armed like a 

 bull, which it resembles in fierceness, with no less strength and 

 agility." The effect, at any rate, is as strange as it is impressive. 

 The animals, as already stated, were grouped upon slightly 

 rising ground, and their dark forms contrasted strongly with the 



