186 



YERTEBRATA. 



muscles attached to the highly-developed spinous processes of the last cervical and first dorsal 

 vertebrae, forming fit machinery fur the support and movement of the enormous head. The chest 

 is broad, and the legs arc strong; the liind parts arc narrow, and have a comparatively weak ap- 

 pearance. The tail is clothed with short fur-like hair, with a long, straight, coarse, blackish- 

 brown tuft at the end. In winter, the whole body is covered with long shaggy hair, which in 

 summer falls off, leaving the blackish wrinkled skin exposed, except on the forehead, hump, fore- 

 quarters, under-jaw, and throat, where the hair is very long and shaggy, and mixed with much 

 wool. The general color is brownish-black, the under surface being of a lighter shade. The 

 female resembles the male, but is somewhat smaller and of a more delicate structure. 



When the Europeans began to form settlements in North America, the hison was occasionally 

 though very rarely, met with in the regions Dear the Atlantic; it was, in fact, uncommon east of 

 the Apalachian chain. As early as the first discovery of Canada it was unknown there. It was 

 found tolerably abundant in Kentucky, hut the center of its haunts has been, and still is, the 

 great plain between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, from latitude G4° south. Here 

 though man — civilized and savage — has made incessant war upon them for a century, and has 



HEUD OF BISONS. 



greatly diminished their numbers, they still roam in vast herds, migrating from one prairie to 

 another, as their necessities in respect to pasture demand. A herd of these enormous be 

 sometimes amounting to five, ten, and even twenty thousand, stretching as far as the eye <-x< 

 reach, over the undulating plains — some bellowing, some fighting, some tearing up the soil — the 

 very earth trembling beneath the shock, and the air filled with a prolonged and portentous mur- 

 mur— is said to present a spectacle at once appalling and sublime. 



The breeding season of the bison is in June and July. The females, either singly or seven: 

 together, retire to some solitary spot, remote from the haunts of wolves and bears, and produce 

 their young, usually one at a time, and in the months of May or June. These follow the mother 

 till the next season. "YYhcn they are attacked by wolves, the cow bellows and runs at the 

 enemy, and sometimes frightens him away. The migrations are generally from north t<> south, 

 in autumn, and from south to north in spring. Some remain in the northern regions through the 

 winter, and dig away the snow to get at the grass. In some seasons many of them, bow< 

 perish. They swim the great rivers of the West, on which occasions many .of the calves arc 

 drowned from being unable to climb the steep or miry banks. On such occasions the mothers, 



