CHAPTER XIV. 
THE BUFFALO. 
But the wildest scenes to be witnessed on this hemisphere 
are those connected with buffalo-hunting on the great plains. 
This huge and shaggy brute affords a strong contrast in size 
with the fierce and bristling little peccary, though in many 
respects the formidable character of the two may be traced 
tc a single and similar cause. The “downward eye,” 
common to them, is this cause. Neither of them, from 
the stiff and peculiar structure of the neck and placing of 
the eye-balls, can, without an effort, see beyond the direct 
plane of vision presented to the habitual carriage of the 
head. 
Whatever is thus exhibited to the peccary that has motion, 
if it be merely the legs of an animal, it charges upon, as 
we have seen; while the buffalo, which is less spontaneously 
pugnacious, may regard the same as an object of stupid 
suspicion, or of headlong, blundering terror. The buffalo 
must be wounded to turn upon the pursuer, and then the 
charge of the goaded and frantic monster, being always in 
a straight line, is disarmed of half its dangerous character, 
as the hunter is thus readily enabled to elude the effects 
by a quick side motion. 
The eye of the horse being more prominently placed, it 
is enabled soon to acquire this facility of advantage; and 
it is most surprising with what wary confidence the trained 
steeds of a Black-feet, Sioux, or a Comanche will dash in 
and through an interminable herd of these prodigious beasts, 
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