64 : THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
exhilarating, or gives one a stronger sense of being really amid nature’s 
untamed wilds, than, when encamped on the outskirts of a quiescent herd, to 
be awakened on a fresh June morning by their distant bellowing, and to see 
them, as daylight advances, quietly grazing over a vast expanse of the green 
prairie. 
As may be well imagined, not only the movements but the habits of the 
buffaloes, in their undisturbed daily lives, are in general not far different 
from those of grazing herds of domestic cattle. They indulge in similar 
gambols, and, when belligerent, in similar blustering demonstrations. 
When approached by man they will often assume an aspect. so threatening 
that a novice at buffalo-hunting might easily be appalled by the fierce 
demonstrations indulged in by the boastful but cowardly old bulls. Bold 
at first, and apparently challenging attack, the old bulls, with the head 
lowered and the tail erect, will pace uneasily to and fro, threateningly 
pawing the earth, or face the ‘approaching enemy with a sullen and 
most determined air only to take to their heels the very next moment. 
The bulls are at all times excessively fond of pawing the ground, and of 
throwing up the earth with their horns, thrusting them into banks when 
such are at hand, or into the bare level ground, which they accomplish by 
lowering themselves upon one knee. To such an extent do they pursue this 
pastime that the horns of the older bulls become very much worn and splin- 
tered, in occasional instances the horny covering of the more exposed part 
being worn very thin, and in rare instances entirely through to the bony core. 
Particularly bovine, also, is the satisfaction they take in rubbing themselves 
against whatever will oppose resistance, whether it be rocks, trees, bushes, 
or a clay-bluff; the telegraph-poles, however, erected along the railroads 
that cross their range, afforded them especial delight as scratching-posts, 
and soon became as well smoothed and covered with tufts of hair and 
grease from their unctuous hides as are the posts about a farmer’s cattle- 
yard. What is very unlike anything in the habits of domestic cattle, how- 
ever, is their propensity to roll themselves on the ground, which, notwith- 
standing their seemingly inconvenient form, they do with the greatest ease, 
rolling over as completely as a horse, and apparently with far less exertion. 
But their especial delight is to roll in the mud, or in “ wallowing,” as it is 
termed, from which exercise they arise looking more like an animated mass 
of mud than their former selves. ( The object of these peculiar ablutions is 
doubtless to cool their heated bodies and to free themselves from trouble- 
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