220 RUMINANTIA. 



thousand pounds ; that of a fat cow, nearly twelve hundred, which 

 is considered a good weight in the fur countries. The Indians 

 have long been hunters of this animal, which they call the Buffalo ; 

 using bows and arrows, which, wielded by their skillful hands, 

 strike the huge creature to the ground. The female is beyond 

 all comparison swifter than the male, and is the constant object 

 of the hunter, from the superior quality of her flesh. The Bison 

 is a shy and wary animal; usually it flies before its pursuers; 

 but sometimes, led by an infuriated individual, the whole herd 

 will turn, and rushing towards the hunters, trample them down 

 in their headlong course. Next to man, the enemies which 

 these animals most greatly dread, are the grizzly bear and the 

 wolf, by which many of them are destroyed ; the wolves assail- 

 ing them in packs and making great havoc, especially among 

 the smaller animals. 



While feeding, they are frequently scattered over a vast 

 surface ; but when they move onwards in a mass, they form a 

 dense, impenetrable column, which once fairly in motion, is 

 scarcely to be turned. They swim large rivers in nearly the 

 same order in which they traverse the plains ; and when flying 

 from pursuit, it is vain for those in front to halt suddenly, as the 

 rearward throng rush madly forward and force their leaders on. 

 The Indians sometimes avail themselves of this habit. Driving 

 a herd of these animals to the vicinity of a precipice, and setting 

 the whole in rapid motion, they, by shouting and other artifices, 

 impel the affrighted animals onward to their own destruction. 

 The herds of these animals found together, sometimes number 

 "countless thousands." Lewis and Clark say, that "20,000 

 would be no exaggerated number" for a herd which they saw, 

 and which ' darkened the whole plain." To Catlin's account of 

 his travels among the North American Indians, reference may 

 be had for many interesting accounts of "buffalo hunts." The 

 risk of this chase is considerable, but its rewards are great; few 

 animals minister more largely to the wants, and even to the 

 comforts of man, than the Bison. The flesh is said to be juicy, 

 bearing "the same relation to common beef that venison does to 

 mutton/' The tongue, well cured, is thought to surpass, as a 

 relish, that of the common ox, the hump also is esteemed pecul- 

 iarly rich and delicate. Much of the pemmican used by iNforth- 

 ern voyagers, or by those attached to the fur companies, is made 

 of bison meat, one bison furnishing meat and fat enough ro 

 make 90 Ibs. of the article. The Indian tribes make every part 

 of the animal subservient to their necessities and comfort, the 

 "Buffalo robes," the skin dressed with the hair on, defending 



