424 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



At the approah of winter the whole great system of herds which 

 ranged from the Peace River to the Indian Territory moved south a 

 few hundred miles, and wintered under more favorable circumstances 

 than each band would have experienced at its farthest north. Thus it 

 happened that nearly the whole of the great range south of the Sas- 

 katchewan was occupied by buffaloes even in winter. 



The movement north began with the return of mild weather in the 

 early spring. Undoubtedly this northward migration was to escape the 

 heat of their southern winter range rather than to find better pasture ; 

 for as a grazing country for cattle all the year round, Texas is hardly 

 surpassed, except where it is overstocked. It was with the buffaloes a 

 matter of choice rather than necessity which sent them on their annual 

 pilgrimage northward. 



Col. R,. I. Dodge, who has made many valuable observations on the mi- 

 gratory habits of the southern buffaloes, has recorded the following : * 



" Early in spring, as soon as the dry and apparently desert prairie 

 had begun to change its coat of dingy brown to one of palest green, the 

 horizon would begin to be dotted with buffalo, single or in groups of 

 two or three, forerunners of the coining herd. Thicker and thicker and 

 in larger groups they come, until by the time the grass is well up the 

 whole vast landscape appears a mass of buffalo, some individuals feed- 

 ing, others standing, others lying down, but the herd moving slowly, 

 moving constantly to the northward. * * * Some years, as in 1871, 

 the buffalo appeared to move northward in one immense column often- 

 times from 20 to 50 miles in width, and of unknown depth from front to 

 rear. Other years the northward journey was made in several parallel 

 columns, moving at the same rate, and with their numerous flankers 

 covering a width of a hundred or more miles. 



" The line of march of this great spring migration was not always the 

 same, though it was confined within certain limits. I am informed by 

 old frontiersmen that it has not within twenty-five years crossed the 

 Arkansas River east of Great Bend nor west of Big Sand Creek. The 

 most favored routes crossed the Arkansas at the mouth of Walnut 

 Creek, Pawnee Fork, Mulberry Creek, the Cimarron Crossing, and Big 

 Sand Creek. 



" As the great herd proceeds northward it is constantly depleted, 

 numbers wandering off to the right and left, until finally it is scattered 

 in small herds far and wide over the vast feeding grounds, where they 

 pass the summer. 



" When the food in one locality fails they go to another, and towards 

 fall, when the grass of the high prairie becomes parched by the heat 

 and drought, they gradually work their way back to the south, concen- 

 trating on the rich pastures of Texas and the Indian Territory, whence, 

 the same instinct acting on all, they are ready to start together on the 

 northward march as soon as spring starts the grass." 



* Our Wild Indians, p. 283, et seq. 



