Buffalo 287 



than repelled by the additional tang thus given. Further, as 

 every settler on the Plains of the Souris knows, the boulders 

 there are smooth and have a hollow worn around them, by 

 the scrubbing and trampling of Buffalo for generations, avail- 

 ing themselves of the chance for a vigorous rub. Old travellers 

 along the Red River tell of all the trees being rubbed smooth, 

 like those in a farmyard. There is, indeed, little doubt that 

 the Buffalo have helped to extend the prairies and to reduce 

 the woodland country by rubbing down the trees. 



In sanitation the Buffalo is very low, its excretions being samt.v 



HON 



left anywhere. Such is the rule among creatures that have 

 nothing of the nature of a nest or home-point. 



The only approach to social amusement that I have ever amuse- 

 heard of was that described to me by Charles Norris, a cowboy ' 

 of New Mexico, who, in 1886, watched a band of Buffalo at 

 their watering-place. After drinking very heavily, he says, 

 they played about like calves, and a number of them amused 

 themselves by jumping off a steep bank into the water four feet 

 below, running round to climb the bank at a low place, and 

 repeating the performance many times. 



The Buffalo bull is so exemplary in his behaviour toward mating 

 the calf that some observers believed the species to be monog- 

 amous. Thus Audubon and Bachman say:®^ 



"The Bison bulls generally select a mate from among a 

 herd of cows and do not leave their chosen one until she is 

 about to calf. 



"When two or more males fancy the same female, furious 

 battles ensue, and the conqueror leads off the fair cause of the 

 contest, in triumph. 



*{> 5jC *^C JjC JfC *7* f* 



"It frequently happens that a bull leads off a cow, and 

 remains with her, separated during the season from all others, 

 either male or female." 

 " Quad. N. A., Vol. II, pp. 37-38. 



