148 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



During the rutting-season the bulls wage tierce 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 moulting 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, 



