250 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



called. The "beaver robe" was a rich brown with very fine 

 fur, of these not more than one in ten thousand was found; the 

 "black robe," oftenest seen in the Mountain Buffalo, was less 

 rare. The "buckskin robe," of a yellow tinge, a sort of half 

 albine, had little value. There were also the "blue robe," 

 which was slatey, and the "white or pied robe." This last was 

 the rarest. One or two in a lifetime was the utmost that any 

 hunter secured. The Indians treasured them as "great 

 medicine." Long writes* of one which J. Dougherty saw in 

 an Indian hut, "a Bison head very well prepared, which had a 

 white star on the front. The owner valued it highly, calUng 

 it his great medicine; he could not be tempted to part with it, 

 "for," said he, "the herds come every season i:nto the vicinity 

 to seek their white-faced companion." A magnificent and his- 

 torical robe of pure white was the special medicine and personal 

 adornment of the great Cheyenne Chief Roman-nose. He wore 

 it in his last fight, when he charged fearlessly at the head of his 

 band to fall in the leaden hail of Forsyth's troops entrenched 

 on Beecher Island. (RepubHcan River, Sept. 17, 1868.) 



Covering, as it does, so many diverse faunal areas, one 

 might naturally expect the Buffalo to split up into several 

 corresponding races; and it is generally recognized that, in a 

 measure, it did so. 



The far north produced the huge Wood Buffalo {B, B. 

 athahasccB, Rhoads); the Rockies the small dark Mountain 

 Buffalo; the Plains the paler medium-sized Plains Buffalo. 

 It is probable, too, that the extinct Alleghanian Buffalo had 

 distinctive characteristics, but there is no available evidence 

 to prove this. 



HISTORY The Bison, or Buffalo, the largest and, at one time, the 



most important of all America's big game, was first discovered 

 by the explorers of the sixteenth century. 



In 1 521 Cortez, the Spanish Conqueror of Mexico, reached 

 Montezuma's capital, the City of Mexico, where, in the men- 



* Exp. Rocky Mts., 1823, Vol. I, p. 471. 



