234 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
The prairies are in some places whitened with 
the skulls of the buffulo, dried and bleached by 
the summer’s sun and the frosts and snows of 
- those severe latitudes in winter. Thousands are 
cilled merely for their tongues, and their large 
carcasses remain, to feed the wolves and other 
rapacious prowlers on the grassy wastes. 
When these animals are shot at a distance of 
fifty or sixty yards, they rarely, if ever, charge 
on the hunters. Mr. Culbertson told us he 
had killed as many as nine bulls from the same 
spot, unseen by these terrible animals. There 
are times, however, when they have been known 
to gore both horse and rider, after being severely 
wounded, and have dropped down dead but a 
few minutes afterwards. There are indeed in- 
stances of bulls receiving many balls without 
being immediately killed, and we saw one which 
during one of our hunts was shot no less than - 
twenty-four times before it dropped. 
A bull that our party had wounded in the 
shoulder, and which was thought too badly hurt 
‘ todo much harm to any one, was found rather 
dangerous when we approached him, as he 
would dart forward at the nearest of his foes, and 
but that his wound prevented him from wheel- 
ing and turning rapidly, he would certainly have 
done some mischief. We fired at him from our 
six-harrelled revolving pistol, which, however, 
