American Big-Game Hunting 
extermination was to be prevented. The Park 
buffalo may all be classed under the head of 
mountain buffalo, and even in this elevated re- 
gion they live for the greater part of the 
year in the timber. In many ways their 
habits are quite different from those generally 
attributed to the buffalo of the plain, and it 
is most unusual, save in midwinter, to find 
them in open valley or on the treeless moun- 
tain slope. They haunt the most inaccessible 
and out-of-the-way places, and what would 
seem to be the least attractive spots, living 
in open glades and pastures, the oases of the 
dense forest, often only to be reached by 
climbing over a tangle of fallen timber. Lo- 
calities least visited by man and avoided by 
other animals are by preference selected by 
buffalo. During long wanderings over the 
timber plateau I have never ceased to be 
amazed at the resorts selected by them, and by 
the rapidity of their disappearance on being 
alarmed. I have frequently come upon ground 
tramped up by buffalo, showing every evi- 
dence of recent occupation, but the animals 
were gone. It is surprising how few buffalo 
have been seen in midsummer, even by those 
262 
