Buffalo 263 



tory moved south a few hundred miles, and wintered under 

 more favourable circumstances than each band would have 

 experienced at its farthest north. Thus it happened that 

 nearly the whole of the great range south of the Saskatchewan 

 was occupied by Buffaloes even in winter." 



"The movement north began with the return of mild 

 weather in the early spring. Undoubtedly, this northward 

 migration was to escape the heat of their southern winter range 

 rather than to find better pasture; for as a grazing country for 

 cattle all the year round, Texas is hardly surpassed, except 

 where it is overstocked. It was with the Buffaloes a matter of 

 choice rather than necessity which sent them on their annual 

 pilgrimage northward." ^^ 



Colonel R. I. Dodge's many valuable observations on the 

 migratory habits of the southern Buffaloes tend to the same 

 conclusions: 



"Early in the spring [he says^^], as soon as the dry and ap- 

 parently desert prairie had begun to change its coat of dingy 

 brown to one of the palest green, the horizon would begin to 

 be dotted with Buffalo, single or in groups of two or three, 

 forerunners of the coming herd. 



"Thicker and thicker and in larger groups they came, 

 until by the time the grass is well up, the whole vast landscape 

 appears a mass of Buffalo, some individuals feeding, others 

 standing, others lying down, but the herd moving slowly, mov- 

 ing constantly to the northward. * * * Some years, as in 

 1 87 1, the Buffalo appeared to move northward in one immense 

 column, oftentimes from 20 to 50 miles in width, and of un- 

 known depth from front to rear. Other years the northward 

 journey was made in several parallel columns, moving at the 

 same rate, and with their numerous flankers covering a width 

 of a hundred or more miles, 



"The line of march of this great spring migration was not 

 always the same, though it was confined within certain limits. 

 I am informed by old frontiersmen that it has not within twenty- 

 five years crossed the Arkansas River east of Great Bend, north- 



'- Loc. cit., p. 424. '=• Our Wild Indians, p. 283, et seq. 



