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THE AMERICAN BISONS. 67 
or between locomotive and cars, just as the blind madness chanced to take 
them. Numbers were killed, but numbers still pressed on to stop and stare 
“as soon as the obstacle was passed. After having trains ditched twice in 
one week, conductors learned to have a very decided respect for the idiosyn- 
crasies of the buffalo, and when there was a possibility of striking a herd 
‘on the rampage’ for the north side of the track, the train was slowed up, 
and sometimes stopped entirely.” * 
The sluggish nature and in some respects intense ‘stupidity of the buffalo 
hence tend greatly to place this animal wholly at the mercy of its enemies, 
chief among whom is man, whether civilized or in the savage state. An ac- 
count of the various devices for their destruction practised by man, and of 
the results ‘that have followed the reckless, exterminating slaughter he has 
waged upon this inoffensive and helpless animal, being given in subsequent 
portions of this memoir, it is unnecessary to refer at length to these matters 
here. Let it suffice, then, in this connection, to say that their unwariness 
renders them an easy prey to the hunter, who, by keeping to the leeward 
of the herd, finds no difficulty in approaching these animals sufficiently near 
for their easy. destruction, even when he is unmounted, while their pursuit 
on horseback has ever been one of the favorite pastimes of the sportsman. 
Fortunately for the buffaloes, they possess few other enemies, the wolves 
being their only other formidable foe. These have now become so reduced 
in numbers over most of the present range of the buffalo that they no longer 
form a very serious check upon its increase. Formerly they everywhere 
harassed the buffalo, destroying many of the young, and even worrying and 
finally killing and devouring the aged, the feeble, and the wounded. Thirty 
years since the wolves, next to the Indians, were the great scourge of the 
buffaloes, and had no small degree of influence in effecting their decrease. 
The earlier explorers of the plains often speak of finding a solitary buffalo, 
disabled by accident or by age, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves, who 
would tease and wound him day and night till he finally fell a prey to their 
ravenous appetites. Catlin and other writers have often referred to this mat- 
ter at length, Catlin having also given a series of paintings of these encounters 
between the bison and his hungry tormentors.t Says Catlin, in his graphic 
account of one of these attacks, “During my travels in these regions [Upper 
Missouri country], I have several times come across such a gang of these 
* Chicago Inter-Ocean, August 5, 1875. 
t North American Indians, Vol. I, p. 257, pls. exiii, exiv. 
