THE BUFFALO AND HIS FATE. 153 



plunges his horns into the ground, tearing up the earth and 

 soon making an excavation into which the water trickles, 

 forming for a short time a cool and comfortable bath, in 

 which he wallows like a hog in the mire, swinging himself 

 round and round on his side, and thus enlarging the pool 

 until he is nearly immersed. At length he rises besmeared 

 with a coating of mud, which, drying, insures him immu- 

 nity from insect pests for many hours. Others follow, 

 each enlarging the " wallow-" until it becomes twenty feet 

 in diameter, remains a prominent feature in the landscape, 

 and forms a cistern where a grateful supply of water is 

 often long retained for the thirsty denizens of that dry 

 region, both animal and human. 



Like the other species of the bovine group, the bison is 

 of sluggish disposition, and mild and timid, ferocious as his 

 shaggy head and vicious eye make him look. He rarely 

 attacks, except in the last hopeless effort of self-defence. 

 " Endowed with the smallest possible amount of instinct," 

 says Colonel E. I. Dodge, " the little he has seems adapted 

 rather for getting him into difficulties than out of them. 

 If not alarmed at sight or smell of a foe, he will stand stu- 

 pidly gazing at his companions in their death-throes until 

 the whole herd is shot down. He will walk unconsciously 

 into a quicksand or quagmire already choked with strug- 



