148 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 
During the rutting-season the bulls wage fierce battles, but 
they rarely result fatally. The short horns are not very 
dangerous weapons, and the masses of hair on the forehead 
break the force of the stunning collisions. At this season 
the bulls become lean, regaining their flesh in autumn, while 
the cows are fattest in June. During its monlting in mid- 
summer the animal possesses a very ragged and uncouth 
appearance, the hair hanging here and there in matted, 
loosened patches, with intervening naked spaces; and it en- 
deavors to free itself from this loosened hair by rubbing 
against rocks and trees, or rolling on the ground. The 
coats are in prime condition for robes in December. 
The buffalo is nomadic in its habits, roaming in the 
course of the year over vast areas in search of food or 
safety. The fires that annually sweep across thousands of 
square miles of the grassy plains, the ravages of grasshop- 
pers, often destroying equally extensive tracts of vegeta- 
tion, and the habit of keeping in compact herds, which 
soon exhaust the herbage of a single region, all compel con- 
stant movement. There is a popular belief that the buffa- 
loes used to migrate from the northern plains to Texas in 
fall and back again in spring, but this seems erroneous. 
Before the intersection of the West by railroads and emi- 
grant trails their movements were more regular, no doubt, 
