Buffalo 249 



that he has a mounted head of which the left horn is 22 inches 

 long, and i6f inches in girth at the base, the widest spread of the 

 horns being 35 inches from tip to tip. He sends me also a pho- 

 tograph of the head of a grand old bull having a spread of ^^^ 

 inches across the horns, the right having a length of 205 inches 

 and a girth of i6| inches. I have not seen either of these. 



Hornaday gives ii| inches as the length of the beard of 

 the above-mentioned bull that he mounted for the National 

 Museum. E. Carter, of Breckenridge, Colo., tells me that the 

 longest beard he ever measured was 12 inches. 



The ordinary process of grazing tends to keep the beard 

 of wild individuals worn down short. I have no doubt that 

 the length given is exceeded in stalled specimens. 



About 1,800 pounds is considered average weight for a weight 

 bull, but Hornaday tells me that he weighed two living bulls 

 at 2,190 pounds and 1,990 pounds respectively. 



According to Audubon and Bachman,' fat cows weigh 

 about 1,200 pounds; though Henry says,^ seldom over 700 or 

 800 pounds. The lesser weight seems to be nearer the aver- 

 age, but I have seen cows that stood as high and looked as 

 heavy as ordinary bulls. 



The bull has the head, tail, legs, lower parts of neck, and colour 

 shoulders dark brown, shaded into lighter brown on the upper 

 parts of the body, palest on the shoulders and hump; toward 

 spring, all the upper parts of the body bleach into a dull brown- 

 ish-yellow, beside which the head looks black. 



The cow is similar, but darker in the body colour. 



At birth the calf is dull reddish-yellow, paler on the legs 

 and under parts; at six months it is more like the mother; at 

 two years it is everywhere of a deep, glossy, blackish brown; 

 after this it again grows paler with age. 



There were several well-known freaks and colour-varieties 

 of the Buffalo "robe," as the shaggy hide of the animal was 



* Q. N. A., 1849, Vol. II, p. 44. 'Henry's Journal, 1897, Vol. I, p. 171. 



