CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 487 



THE TAME BUFFALO. 



may be seen watching the efforts of their offspring with intense anxiety, but unable to render 

 them any assistance, and only uttering troubled moans ; often, the calves get on the backs of 

 their mothers, and are thus carried over the streams in safety. Sometimes in crossing the ice a 

 herd is ingulfed, and many of them perish. 



In the spring the bison bulls select their mates and do not leave them till these retire for their 

 parturition. The battles among the males for a particular female are often terrible. On thesf 

 occasions the contest is preluded by bellow ings and tearing up of the earth after the manner of 

 civilized bulls. When the combatants rush to the encounter, striking their heads together, the 

 shock is altogether terrific. As a large herd moves along they keep up a perpetual bellowing, 

 and it is said they may be heard ten miles on a fine day. In their migrations the multitude 

 move irregularly forward in a slow walk ; but when necessity requires these animals can gallop 

 nearly as fast as a horse can run. Some of the fat, old bulls, however, like pursy old gentlemen, 

 are incapable of such flights. The cows and calves are much the fleetest. In lying down and 

 rising the action of the bison is nearly the same as that of our domestic cattle. 



The Bison presents many inducements to the hunter for its capture : the horns are used for 

 many purposes, the hide is valuable as a covering, the flesh is excellent — some parts, indeed, as the 

 tongue and the hump, delicious. It is not surprising, therefore, that various methods are resorted 

 to by the Indians — several tribes of which live almost entirely on their flesh — in hunting these 

 animals. Sometimes the dry prairie-grass is set on fire in a circle, and maddened by fright, the 

 poor animals rush into openings, where the deadly rifle awaits them Sometimes they are driven 

 over ledges of rocks, and either killed or fatally wounded in the plunge ; sometimes they are en- 

 ticed into a large inclosure made of stakes and branches of trees, where they are easily dispatched ; 

 sometimes the hunter approaches the herd on horseback, and selecting a particular animal, lays 

 him prostrate by a bullet or an arrow, which is sent with such force as to pass quite through 

 the body. Nor are the Indians the only slayers of these beasts : white hunters — some who make 

 it a trade, some who are only seeking sport — and not a few are attracted hither, as well from dif- 

 ferent portions of the United States as from various parts of Europe — are constantly plying the 

 deadly rifle against these herds. At the same time, numerous bands of wolves are mingled with 

 the flock, attacking and pulling down the young, the sick, the lame, the wounded, the lonely, and 

 the defenseless. Catlin, with terrible fidelity, has painted some of these hunting scenes — net 

 'only the attacks of the Indians upon the herd, but those of the prairie-wolves, encircling, for in- 

 >ce, some wounded bull, who, although his eyes are torn from their sockets, his tongue eaten 

 off, and his bowels gushing out and being ravenously devoured by his hideous assailants, still 

 stands and — blind, bleeding, and staggering — bravely faces and threatens his enemy. The grizzly 

 hear is also a terrible destroyer, and the strongest of the train falls helpless beneath the shock of 



