THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. 27 



the whole they are darker in color, with longer, 

 thicker hair, and in consequence with the ap- 

 pearance of being heavier-bodied and shorter- 

 legged. They have been sometimes spoken 

 of as forming a separate species ; but, judging 

 from my own limited experience, and from a 

 comparison of the many hides I have seen, I 

 think they are really the same animal, many 

 individuals of the two so-called varieties being 

 quite indistinguishable. In fact the only 

 moderate-sized herd of wild bison in existence 

 to-day, the protected herd in the Yellowstone 

 Park, is composed of animals intermediate in 

 habits and coat between the mountain and 

 plains varieties as were all the herds of the 

 Bighorn, Big Hole, Upper Madison, and Up- 

 per Yellowstone valleys. 



However, the habitat of these wood and 

 mountain bison yielded them shelter from 

 hunters in a way that the plains never could, 

 and hence they have always been harder to 

 kill in the one place than in the other ; for 

 precisely the same reasons that have held 

 good with the elk, which have been completely 

 exterminated from the plains, while still abun- 

 dant in many of the forest fastnesses of the 

 Rockies. Moreover, the bison's dull eyesight 

 is no special harm in the woods, while it is 

 peculiarly hurtful to the safety of any beast 

 on the plains, where eyesight avails more than 

 any other sense, the true game of the plains 

 being the prong-buck, the most keen-sighted 

 of American animals. On the other hand the 

 bison's hearing, of little avail on the plains, is 



