RIVAL MONARCHS. 



NE of the most striking features of the vast prairies of the western world, 

 is the enormous herds of Buffaloes, or properly speaking Bison (for there are 

 no true Buffaloes in North America), that roam over the undulating plains. 

 Moving in numbers that are apparently countless, they cover the landscape in great, 

 shaggy masses far as the eye can reach, until lost in the dim horizon. They are 

 among the last representatives of the great quadrupeds which had their abode 

 on that extensive continent in earlier times. The days of the Bison, too, seem 

 to be numbered ; for hemmed up in already restricted regions which are daily 

 becoming more and more narrow, the period cannot be far distant, when the last 

 of these noble animals shall succumb before its numerous foes, and pass like its 

 gigantic predecessors into the realms of tradition and story. 



The Bison of America, although possessed of great strength, trusts more 

 to its speed, and to weight of numbers to escape from its pursuers, than to any 

 means of defence which nature has given it. Ungraceful in form, its huge head 

 hanging low towards the ground, as if it were too heavy for the body, and was 

 even an impediment to its progress, the animal, nevertheless, speeds away in a kind 

 of lumbering gallop at so rapid a rate, that a good horse is required to enable the 

 hunter to overtake it. As they dash along in serried masses, the old bulls are 

 always in front and on the sides, while the cows, and calves, are huddled together 

 in the centre. Their small, fiery eyes flash from the midst of the tangled hair 

 that falls over the forehead, and the herd goes thundering on, enveloped in a 



