FAIBY RINGS 365 



After passing a winter amidst the deep snow of the north 

 they are a great deal fatter and stronger than if they 

 had been spending it in the sunny south. For the 

 grass and juicy plants on which the buffaloes feed have 

 been completely dried up during a long hot autumn, 

 while in Canada the animals can generally manage to get 

 good grass by scraping away the snow, which has kept the 

 herbage wholesome and fresh under its' white covering. 



Still, in Canada, as well as in Texas, the summers are 

 very hot, and the poor buffaloes, in their thick coats, 

 suffer a great deal. So they seek out some low plain, 

 where they know by experience that there is a chance 

 of finding a marshy place left by the winter's rains. 

 What happiness for the poor tired creatures who have 

 been walking perhaps for hours under the burning sun, 

 carrying their huge bodies, which often weigh as much as 

 2,000 lb., to come on one of these little oases, as they 

 would be called in Arabia or the Sahara ! But even the 

 prospect of a cool bath does not affect their good manners 

 and sense of discipline. They all hold back and let the 

 leader of the herd come forward. He sinks carefully on 

 one knee in the soft green place, and putting down his 

 head, stirs up the wet earth, so that the water gradually 

 bubbles up, and a little pool is formed, though, to be sure, 

 it is more liquid mud than anything else. When the bull 

 has got all the water he thinks he is likely to have, he 

 throws himself on his side, and turns himself round two 

 or three times till he has made a circular pond large 

 enough to cover him almost entirely. Then he feels com- 

 fortable again, and comes out, such a mass of mud from 

 head to foot that it is wonderful how he manages to 

 walk at all. 



Sometimes it happens that the leader of the herd will 

 not take the trouble to make the pool for himself, but 

 suffers one of the other bulls to begin the work, which is the 

 most difficult part. However, when this is done, the 

 leader (who has been chosen by the rest as being stronger 



