Buffalo 285 



Grieve tells me that he thinks the bird was wounded and 

 unable to fly when its kinsfolk went south, and so made the best 

 of the situation; and not so very bad it proved, for it was fat 

 and fit in the spring. 



As the summer grows warm the Buffalo shed their coats 

 in great broad flakes or wads of mothy-looking felt, till the 

 hinder half of their bodies becomes positively naked. And 

 now the mosquito millions are turned loose. I suppose that 

 even a rhinoceros would be annoyed by these long-beaked 

 stingers of the lush wet prairies, and the Buffalo, with their 

 naked rears, are driven to accept any promise of relief. Stand- 

 ing on a high knoll in a strong wind is said to be "good medi- 

 cine" for the flies. But such a combination is not always 

 available, and, besides, it prevents feeding. A much more 

 convenient protection is a supplementary coat of mud. 



Catlin's description of the Buffalo habit of "doping for the 

 flies" is old, but worthy of repetition, for he saw it in its highest 

 development and on numberless occasions: 



" In the heat of summer [he says ^] these huge animals, 

 which, no doubt, suffer very much with the great profusion 

 of their long and shaggy hair or fur, often graze on the low 

 grounds in the prairies, where there is a little stagnant water 

 lying amongst the grass, and the ground underneath being 

 saturated with it, is soft, into which the enormous bull, lowered 

 down upon one knee, will plunge his horns, and at last his head, 

 driving up the earth, and soon making an excavation in the 

 ground, into which the water filters from amongst the grass, 

 forming for him in a few moments a cool and comfortable 

 bath, into which he plunges like a hog in his mire. 



"In this delectable laver he throws himself flat upon his 

 side, and forcing himself violently around, with his horns and 

 his huge hump on his shoulders, presented to the sides, he 

 ploughs up the ground by his rotary motion, sinking himself 

 deeper and deeper in the ground, continually enlarging his 

 pool, in which he at length becomes nearly immersed. And 



"N. A. Indians, Vol. I, p. 249-50. 



WALLOW 



