268 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



quired, habits widely different from those of the 

 others of its kind. It is found in the wooded and 

 most precipitous portions of the mountains, instead 

 of on the level and open plains ; it goes singly or in 

 small parties, instead of in huge herds; and it is 

 more agile and infinitely more wary than is its 

 prairie cousin. The formation of this race is due 

 solely to the extremely severe process of natural 

 selection that has been going on among the buffalo 

 herds for the last sixty or seventy years; the vast 

 majority of the individuals were utterly unable 

 to accommodate themselves to the sudden and 

 complete change in the surrounding forces with 

 which they had to cope, and therefore died out; 

 while a very few of the more active and wary, and 

 of those most given to wandering off into moun- 

 tainous and out-of-the-way places, in each genera- 

 tion survived, and among these the wariness con- 

 tinually increased, partly by personal experience, 

 and still more by inheriting an increasingly sus- 

 picious nature from their ancestors. The sense of 

 smell always was excellent in the buffalo; the sense 

 of hearing becomes much quicker in any woods 

 animal than it is in one found on the plains; while 

 in beasts of the forest the eyesight does not have 

 to be as keen as is necessary for their protection in 

 open country. On the mountains the hair grows 

 longer and denser, and the form rather more thick- 

 set. As a result, a new race has been built up ; and 

 we have an animal far better fitted to "harmonize 

 with the environment," to use the scientific cant of 



