30 EXPEDITION TO THE 



are restricted. In 1S22, the limit of its wanderings down 

 the St. Peter, was Great Swan L;ike, (near Camp Cres- 

 cent.) In 1823, the gentlemen of the Columbia Fur Com* 

 pany were obliged to travel five days, in a north-west di- 

 rection from Lake Travers, before they fell in with the 

 game, but they then soon succeeded in killing sixty ani- 

 mals. There can be no doubt but this constant subtraction 

 from his roamings must affect his numbers; certainly more 

 than the practice of killing only the cows and leaving the 

 bulls; a custom which has probably prevailed among the 

 Indians for a long while, and which we cannot therefore 

 consider as the source of the great modern diminution in 

 their numbers. Civilization in its steady march destroys 

 the larger gregarious animals, and even drives back the 

 hunting man, unless he change his mode of life. If the 

 deer were more social in its habits, that interesting tenant 

 of our forests would have been long since driven to the 

 asylum of the buffalo, the elk, and the beaver. 



All the buffaloes which our party saw, were of an uniform 

 dun colour. We were informed that they had been some- 

 times seen white or spotted. The age of the animal is ge- 

 nerally indicated by the number of rugae or transverse 

 lines on the horns. Mr. Colhoun killed a bull, that by this 

 process of reckoning, was supposed to be twenty-six years 

 old ; in this calculation the first four rugae are allowed for 

 the first year. If this mode of calculation be correct, 

 as is generally supposed, the buffalo probably attains- a 

 greater age than thfe tame ox. The frame, of the buffalo^ 

 is much larger than that of domestic cattle, and though its 

 fore parts are uncouth, the hind parts are handsomely form- 

 ed. Cows are considered more delicate eating than bulls, 

 especially during the rutting season, when the latter assume 

 a rank and strong flavour. This was the case about the 



