274 ACCESSIBLE FIELD SPORTS. 



lieved on his return to his native land, and not till 

 lately has proper credit been given to this patriotic 

 man, years after he has mouldered to dust, because not 

 till lately did research confirm the truth of all he had 

 stated. Not caring whether or not I am believed, for 

 the ignorant are ever the most sceptical, I state that 

 more buffalo will be sometimes seen in a day's ride 

 over the gigantic western table-lands of America than 

 ever spectator beheld of domestic cattle in the best 

 adapted region for growing stock. 



Kind reader, fancy yourself transported from the 

 busy haunts of man, far, far beyond the turbid waters 

 of the giant Mississippi, to the rolling uplands that 

 border the vertebrate chain of mountains which longitu- 

 dinally intersects the western continent : the season, 

 spring of the year, when tender, succulent grasses com- 

 mence to sprout, and if you have the fortune to strike 

 the chosen route selected by these superb and matchless 

 animals, you will behold a migration, which for 

 numbers appears to equal the dense flights of the wild 

 pigeon or innumerable phalanxes of duck pursuing 

 their biannual journey to and from the sterile north. 

 And for grandeur of effect, all other sights fall far 

 short of this to the sportsman's eye, the surface of the 

 ground being frequently obscured, and nought but a 

 dense, uncountable surging mass of dark, tawny hides, 



