BUFFALO HUNTING. 67 



accomplish this purpose. Their southern limits are 

 Northern Texas and New Mexico, while the inter- 

 mediate expanse up to 65 degrees of north latitude, 

 according to the season, contains them in more or less 

 abundance. Of late years their range north has been 

 increased between 3 and 4 degrees, so that Indians 

 who formerly had to come two hundred or more miles, 

 if desirous of obtaining a supply of beef for winter 

 use, have the animals now on their home hunting- 

 grounds. I am disposed to believe that this is caused 

 from their finding these northern regions less dis- 

 turbed for this is far north of where the constant tide 

 of emigrants crosses the plains and that the poor, 

 persecuted creatures prefer suffering from the cold of 

 these inhospitable localities to facing the dangers that 

 always are connected with a rencontre with the pale- 

 face. Although the buffalo can endure a great amount 

 of cold, and can find food even after a thick covering 

 of snow covers the earth, yet he is not provided like 

 the musk sheep for an Arctic winter, and from his 

 greater bulk requires so much food, that a protracted 

 sojourn in the northern barrens must ultimately have 

 the result of reducing his strength, and therefore his 

 fitness to cope with the severity of the climate. Again, 

 he has other enemies as well as man. The wolves 

 seldom leave him alone. Day and night they bestow 



