62 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
westward the ground was almost wholly bare. I was informed, furthermore, 
that this was the usual distribution of the snow in this region whenever any 
fell there. Although occasionally the snow does not accumulate in sufficient 
quantity to render grazing difficult over any of the country west of Fossil 
Creek, the buffaloes regularly abandon this region in winter for the country 
further west, where snow is of more exceptional occurrence. 
The wanderings of the buffaloes often render it necessary for them to 
cross large streams, which they seem to do with reckless fearlessness and at 
almost any season of the year, though frequently at the cost of the lives of 
many of the old and feeble as well as of the young. Lewis and Clarke 
speak of their crossing the Upper Missouri in such numbers as to delay their 
boat, the river being filled with them as thick as they could swim for the 
distance of amile.* Other Western travellers mention similar scenes.} Bad 
landing-places, such as bluffy banks or miry shores, often prove fatal to the 
halfexhausted creature after reaching the shore} In winter they boldly 
cross the rivers on the ice; towards spring, however, after the ice has 
become weakened by melting, and even occasionally at other times, in con- 
sequence of their crowding too thickly together, the ice breaks beneath their 
weight and great numbers are drowned. In spring they often cross amid 
the floating ice, at which times they are sometimes set upon by the Indians, 
to whom they then fall an easy prey. According to Audubon, small herds 
occasionally find themselves adrift on masses of floating ice, where the ma- 
jority perish from cold and lack of food rather than trust themselves to the 
icy, turbulent waters.§ 
The behavior and movements of the buffalo are in general very much like 
those of domestic cattle, but their speed and endurance seem to be far 
* Lewis and Clarke’s Exped., Vol. II, p. 395. 
+ Catlin, North Am. Indians, Vol. I, p. 13; Fremont, Explorations, etc., p 23. 
{ The following incident in point is related by Colonel Dodge: “ Late in the summer of 1867 a herd of 
probably four thousand buffaloes attempted to cross the South Platte near Plum Creek. The river was rap- 
idly subsiding, being nowhere over a foot or two in depth, and the channels in the bed were filled or filling 
with loose quicksand. The buffaloes in front were hopelessly stuck. Those immediately behind, urged on 
by the horns and pressure of those yet further in the rear, trampled over their struggling companions to be 
themselves ingulfed in the devouring sand. This was continued until the bed of the river, nearly half a 
mile broad, was covered with dead or dying buffaloes. Only a comparative few actually crossed the river, 
and these were soon driven back by hunters. It was estimated that considerably more than half the herd, 
or over two thousand buffaloes, paid for this attempt with their lives.” — Chicago Inter-Ocean, August 5, 
1875. 
§ Audubon and Bachman, Quad. N. Am., Vol. II, p. 38. 
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