496 



BISON. 



About the middle latitude of their range, that is 

 about where the Missouri comes in from the \vst, 

 they appear to be most numerous ; and it is there 

 that they have been described as assembling iu such 

 vast herds, sometimes to the estimated number of not 

 less than 20,000 at one time. It is also there that they 

 are said to attain the largest size, and to be of the 

 most bold and determined character. 



In these their most appropriate pastures, and ac- 

 companied as they are by rivers like seas, and single 

 plains like counties or even kingdoms, a herd of 

 them must be a splendid sight, especially when thrown 

 into a state of agitation by a thunder-storm or any 

 other cause of alarm. They are by no means so fleet 

 footed as the more slender-bodied ruminantia; but 

 the enlargement of their bodies forwards, the com- 

 pactness behind, the flowing of the shaggy mane, and 

 the sound which they utter, which is something be- 

 tween bellowing and groaning, their dark colour, and 

 above all their numbers, must have a splendid effect. 



American Bison 



In their most southerly latitudes they are migrant, 

 and probably they are so also in their most northerly 

 ones ; but there is no reason to suppose that any of 

 them migrate through the extremes of their distribu- 

 tion, which are about 2000 miles asunder, or even 

 over the tenth part of that long distance. The very 

 instinct or tendency, whatever it may be, which ren- 

 ders animals social or gregarious keeps them as a 

 matter of fact and of course to their own herd ; and 

 they never quit that but when the others expel them 

 by force, and the reception with which the exiled 

 beasts are greeted by new herds, which they attempt 

 to join, are not of the most courteous nature. Tims 

 it is probable that where the savannah is so large as 

 to admit of the assembly of thousands, they shift only 

 from the one part to the other, as the seasons may 

 require, approaching the waters in the droughts, and 

 retiring from them during the rains. 



In their more southerly localities, where the cha- 

 racter of the seasons is more tropical, and the plains 

 are entirely destitute of herbage, saving only aloes 

 and other esculent plants, they are much more migra- 

 tory ; and have some analogy in their motion to the 

 herds in the plains of Asia. Though even in those 

 places the migration appears to be as much to the hill 

 as to the northward in the summer; though they 

 collect in the more temperate forests in winter. In 

 the north they are of much smaller size, and shaggy 

 in their coats, and not so spirited as in those latitudes 

 which are the most congenial to their habits. 



They are said not to be naturally vicious, but they 

 are easily excited, and then their activity often makes 



them mischievous. They are capable of a sort of 

 domestication, but they are neither very pleasant nor 

 very profitable on a farm. Their form disqualifies 

 them for animals of draught; and they take their 

 range of the whole, heedless of ordinary fences. The 

 males are rather formidable at all times ; and dur- 

 ing the rutting season, which is about the month of 

 June, they are dangerous. Against biting animals 

 they make a much better defence than most of the 

 others. Thev keep their heads resolutely to the 

 enemy, and as the face only is vulnerable to any 

 ordinary bite in that direction, and the hairs are a 

 good protection to the upper part, they stand reso- 

 lutely ; and they are equally dexterous at tossing 

 their foes and trampling them under foot. 



In all parts where they are found the Indians hunt 

 them very assiduously, especially in the fall of the 

 year when they are in the best condition. The flesh 

 has a smoky flavour, but is very wholesome ; and 

 the skin forms the most desirable mats which the 

 Indians possess. Various accounts of the modes of 

 capture, some more ingenious and some less, have 

 been published ; but these belong to the history of 

 the hunters and the hunted. 



In a natural history point of view these animals 

 are important as being the only species of the ox 

 genus, the existence of which on the American con- 

 tinent, at any period of its history has been fully 

 authenticated. There have no doubt been reports 

 of individuals of much larger size, and supposed to 

 belong to another species, being seen on the Stony 

 Mountains. But the species which are known differ 

 very much in size ; and there is besides some diffi- 

 culty of judging of the magnitudes of two animals 

 when the one is seen on a mountain, or on an eleva- 

 tion of any kind, and the other on a plain. Deer 

 when seen on a hill-top, projected against the sky, 

 seem giants, and their horns to be the leafless boughs 

 of large trees, but if one follow the very same herd 

 till they are in the hollow and look down upon them, 

 they seem the miniatures of their former appearance. 

 Even the horns of the extinct species seem a little 

 doubtful, for it does not very clearly apprar, from any 

 collateral evidence of a peculiar state of vegetation, 

 that North America has undergone any climatal 

 change, which would have rendered the extinction 

 of any species of ruminant animals necessary ; at 

 least there is no evidence of any necessity of the 

 kind, unless we are to suppose that some violent 

 catastrophe of nature has intervened ; and the possi- 

 bility of anything which has disturbed the solid strata 

 is precluded by the situations in which the horns are 

 found, which are always such that no* catastrophe 

 greater than a mere surface one, such as an inunda- 

 tion arising from the bursting of a lake, or an altera- 

 tion of the course of a river, can be admitted, indeed 

 can possibly have taken place since those horns 

 formed part of the bodies of living animals. 



Besides, when America was first discovered by 

 Europeans, it was completely stocked with the exist- 

 ing species, down to the very shores of the Atlantic, so 

 that it is difficult to imagine a country as being better 

 adapted to its native animals than North America 

 was at that time to its bisons. Even now, notwith- 

 standing the disappearance of these animals from the 

 parts which have been settled and cultivated, the 

 immense herds show that there is no falling off in the 

 fitness of the country in those parts where the animals 

 have not been invaded by civilisation. South Aine- 



