Buffalo 291 



as he stood bleeding and trembling before me, and said to him 

 I^Jow IS your time, old fellow, and you had better be off '* 

 1 hough blmd and nearly destroyed, there seemed evidently 

 to be a recognition of a friend in me, as he straightened up and 

 trembling with excitement, dashed off at full speed upo'n the 

 prairie, in a straight line. We turned our horses and resumed 

 our march, and when we had advanced a mile or more we 

 looked back and on our left, where we saw again the ill-fkted 

 animal surrounded by his tormentors, to whose insatiable 

 voracity he unquestionably soon fell a victim." 



During August and September the herd has consisted of autumn 

 all ages and sexes intermixed. As September wanes, the males 

 lose interest in their partners, and now for the first time we 

 find the clan divided, the males in one herd, the females in 

 another. Their lives go on as before, but they meet and pass 

 without mixing. The bulls are at this time poor in flesh and 

 subdued m spirit, but the rich pasturage to which they most 

 assiduously devote themselves begins to improve their condi- 

 tion. By October the good fare shows in all. Their new 

 growing coats are sleek, their bodies reinvigorated their 

 tempers more sociable, and, when late November frosts send 

 forth the word to move, it is usual to find the clan reunited 

 rnoving as before with the old great-grandmother in advance- 

 the young ones scattered through it, the father and grandfather 

 behind ; and the dethroned great-great-great-grandfather roam- 

 ing alone in the offing. 



These solitaries were probably far over twenty years of age 

 age. Domestic bulls continue to breed till considerably over 

 a dozen years old. These were past breeding, and the Buffalo 

 seems to have been longer lived than the ordinary bovine 

 The Hon. R. F. Pettigrew, of South Dakota, tells me that a 

 Buffalo bull calf that he caught in 1 882 was still living in Buffalo 

 City Zoo in 1902, and by its continued vigour gave every 

 promise of a much more extended life. The cows seem equally 

 long-hved. Charles Payne tells me of one that was still 



