24 BUFFALO IN BLIZZARDS. 



characteristic they transmit to their half-breed descendants 

 by ordinary domestic cattle. Often during a storm, buffalo 

 and hybrids, will lie down, turning their shoulders to the 

 gale, and bending their heads round to the flank, so as to 

 be out of the wind; thus they will lie for hours till quite 

 covered up and concealed by snow; and often after a heavy 

 storm, the whole plain being covered with a glittering mass 

 of snow, the only thing to be seen of them is here and there 

 little moulds, beneath which the buffalo lie buried; and one 

 by one they get up, shake themselves, and begin to paw the 

 snow" (or shovel it with their noses) " and feed on the grass 

 beneath the keen scent of the buffalo enabling them to 

 discover by it where the best grass is to be found." * 



We think we can say that in all probability, these 

 details are on the whole substantially correct: as it is 

 a fact which was well known to all hunters on the 

 prairies that buffalo did not run before a storm, as 

 domestic cattle and horses will always do if they can ; 

 and experience has shown that these latter, and even 

 man himself, when exposed to the full fury of the 

 elements, are on these occasions almost sure to perish, 

 if caught in the open, in really bad storms. 



The number of distressing and fatal accidents that 

 have occurred upon the western plains of North 

 America, and elsewhere, from these causes, are almost 

 too numerous to mention; and when a man escapes 

 with his life, it is only too often with frozen limbs, 

 from which fearful mutilations frequently occur. We 

 have ourselves seen more than one instance where a 

 man has lost both his feet. 



Now the range of the buffalo extended from the 

 borders of Mexico in the south, to far up into the 

 snowy regions of the Hudson's Bay Territory in the 



* From Forest and Stream, of April 18, 1889. 



