American Big-Game Hunting 



extermination was to be prevented. The Park 

 buffalo may all be classed under the head of 

 mountain buffalo, and even in this elevated re- 

 gion they live for the greater part of the 

 year in the timber. In many ways their 

 habits are quite different from those generally 

 attributed to the buffalo of the plain, and it 

 is most unusual, save in midwinter, to find 

 them in open valley or on the treeless moun- 

 tain slope. They haunt the most inaccessible 

 and out-of-the-way places, and what would 

 seem to be the least attractive spots, living 

 in open glades and pastures, the oases of the 

 dense forest, often only to be reached by 

 climbing over a tangle of fallen timber. Lo- 

 calities least visited by man and avoided by 

 other animals are by preference selected by 

 buffalo. During long wanderings over the 

 timber plateau I have never ceased to be 

 amazed at the resorts selected by them, and by 

 the rapidity of their disappearance on being 

 alarmed, I have frequently come upon ground 

 tramped up by buffalo, showing every evi- 

 dence of recent occupation, but the animals 

 were gone. It is surprising how few buffalo 

 have been seen in midsummer, even by those 



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