280 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. . 



horns, hoofs, and bones to the construction of dresses, shields, bows, &c. — Page 24, 

 vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 



The mode in which these Indians kill this noble animal is spirited and thrilling in 

 the extreme, and I must in a future epistle give you a minute account of it. I have 

 almost daily accompanied parties of Indians to see the fun, and have often shared in 

 it myself; but much oftener ran my horse by their sides to see how the thing was 

 done;* to study the modes and expressions of these splendid scenes, which I am in- 

 dustriously putting upon the canvas. 



They are all (or nearly so) killed with arrows and the lance, while at full speed, 

 and the reader may easily imagine that these scenes afford the most spirited and pic- 

 turesque views of the sporting kind that can possibly be seen. — G. C. 



Mr. Catlin's letter number thirty-one is written from the mouth of 

 Teton Eiver, Upper Missouri, dated July, 1832, and gives interesting 

 remarks on buffaloes and buffalo hunting: 



In former letters I have given some account of the bisons (or, as they are more 

 familiarly denominated in this country buffaloes) which inhabit these regions in 

 numerous herds, and of which I must say yet a little more. 



These noble animals of the ox species, and which have been so well described in 

 our boolis on natural history, are a subject of curious interest and great importance 

 in this vast wilderness; rendered peculiarily so at this time, like the history of the 

 poor savage, and from the same consideration, that they are rapidly wasting away 

 at the approach of civilized man, and like him and his character, in a very few years, 

 to live only in books or on canvas. 



The word buffalo is undoubtedly most incorrectly applied to these animals, and I 

 can scarcely tell why they have been so called, for they bear just about as much re- 

 semblance to the Eastern buffalo as they do to a zebra or to a common ox. How 

 nearly they may approach to the bison of Europe, which I never have had an oppor- 

 tunity to see, and which, I am inclined to think, is now nearly extinct, I am iinable 

 to say ; yet, if I were to judge from the numerous engravings I have seen of those 

 animals, and descriptions I have read of them, I should be inclined to think there was 

 yet a wide difference between the bison of the American prairies and those in the 

 north of Europe and Asia. The American bison (or as I shall hereafter call it buf- 

 falo) is the largest of the ruminating animals that is now living in America, and seems 

 to have been spread over the plains of this vast country by the Great Spirit for the 

 use and subsistence of the red men, who live almost exclusively on their iiesh and 

 clothe themselves with their skins. The reader, by referring back to Plates 7, No. 

 404, and 8, No. 405, in the beginning of this work, will see faithful traces of the male 

 and female of this huge animal, in their proud and free state of nature, grazing on 

 the plains of the country to which they appropriately belong. Their color is a dark 

 brown, but changing very much as the season varies from warm to cold, their hairor 

 fur, from its great length in the winter and spring, and exposure to the weather, turn- 

 ing quite light, and almost to a jet black when the winter coat is shed off and a new 

 growth is shooting out. 



The buffalo bull often grows tathe enormous weight of 2,000 pounds, and shakes a 

 long and shaggy black mane that falls in great profusion and confusion over his head 

 and shoulders, and oftentimes falling down quite to the ground. The horns are short, 

 but very large, and have but one turn, i. e., they are a simple arch, without the least 

 approach to a spiral form, like those of the common ox, or of the goat species. 



The female is much smaller than the male, and always distinguishable by the pecu- 

 liar shape of the horns, which are much smaller and more crooked, turning their 

 points more in towards the center of the forehead. 



One of the most remarkable characteristics of the buffalo is the peculiar formation 

 and expression of the eye, the ball of which is very large and white and the iris jet 

 black. The lids of the eyes seem always to be strained quite open, and the ball roll- 



