THE AMERICAN BISONS. 57 
ning of March till the end of June, and follow the mother for nearly a year. 
Generally, also, the yearlings and two and three year olds are found asso- 
ciated with the cows and younger bulls. During no part of the year do the 
sexes form separate herds, but are found mingled together nearly in the 
manner already described.* It has been asserted, however, that the bulls 
select their partners and keep near them till the cows are about to calve, 
when for a time they leave them.t+ During the rutting season the bulls often 
wage fierce battles, but they are believed never to result fatally. The 
actions of the combatants are not much unlike those of domestic cattle under 
similar circumstances, they pawing the ground and bellowing, blustering 
loudly before engaging in actual combat. Their short horns are not appar- 
ently very dangerous weapons, and the stunning effect of the heavy shocks 
that must follow the violent collisions of these monsters when fighting is 
doubtless partly broken by the immense thickness of hair with which their 
* Since the above was written I have met with the following remarks from the pen of Colonel R. I. 
Dodge: “ When the calves are young they are kept always in the centre of each small herd, the cows | 
with them, while the bulls dispose themselves on the outside. When feeding the herd is more or less 
scattered, but on the approach of danger it closes and rounds into a tolerably compact circular mass. 
“The small herds, which compose the great herd, have each generally more bulls than cows, seeming all 
on the very best terms with each other. The old bulls do undoubtedly leave the herd and wander off 
as advance or rear guards and flankers, but I am disposed to believe this due to a misanthropic abnega- 
tion of society on the part of these old fellows, to whom female companionship no longer possesses its charm, 
rather than to their being driven out by the younger bulls, as is generally believed. This habitual separa- 
tion of the large herd into numerous smaller herds seems to be an instinctive act, probably for more per- 
fect mutual protection. It has been thought, said, and written by many persons that each small herd is a 
sort of community, the harem and retainers of some specially powerful bull, who keeps proper order and 
subjection among them. Nothing is further from the truth. The association is not only purely instinctive, 
voluntary, free from domination of power, of sexual appetite, or individual preferences, but is most 
undoubtedly entirely accidental as to individual components. I have, when unobserved, carefull y watched 
herds while feeding. I have seen two or more small herds merge into one, or one larger herd separate 
into two, or more. This is done quietly, gradually, and, as it were, accidentally, in the act of feeding, each 
buffalo seeming only intent on getting his full share of the best grass. I have already said that the cows 
and calves are always in the centre, the bulls on the outside. When feeding herds approach each other 
and merge into one, the only perceptible change — and this is so gradual as scarcely to be noticeable —is 
that the bulls on the sides of contact work themselves out toward the new circumference, which is to inclose 
the whole; and when a larger herd breaks, by the same gradual process, into smaller ones, the bulls 
instinctively place themselves on the outside of each. When pursued the herds rush together in one com- 
pact, plunging mass. As soon as the pursuit is over, and the buffaloes are sufficiently recovered from their 
fright to begin feeding, those on the outside of the mass gradually detach themselves, breaking into 
smaller herds, until the whole large herd is in its normal condition. If each dominant bull had on such 
occasions to run through the herd to look up his lost wives, children, and dependents, this life would not 
only be a very unhappy, but also a very busy one.” — Clucago Inter-Ocean (newspaper) of August 5, 1875. 
+ See Audubon and Bachman’s Quad. N. America, Vol. I, p- 37. 
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