THE BISON. 377 



yet when tlie animal is seen from tlie front Ms strengtli and 

 weight can be understood, for his chest is broad, his body compact, 

 and the limbs are powerful. 



The winter appearance of the buffalo is very different to its 

 summer one, for as a protection against the cold the fore-part of 

 the body is clothed with long shaggy hair, which rises in a dense 

 mass on the top of the head, and beneath the lower jaw forms a 

 well marked beard. This hair is curly, thick and woolly, and the 

 whole of the under parts are covered with it, except in the spring 

 when it commences to fall off, which gives the animal a very ragged 

 and uncouth look during this season. In the summer the buffalo 

 has a naked appearance, for the wrinkled, blackish-coloured skin is 

 exposed or only covered with a short, fine hair, which is as smooth 

 as velvet except upon the hump, head, fore-quarters and throat, 

 where the woolly hair is more or less permanent. The tail is over 

 a foot long and terminates with a tuft of shaggy hair. 



A full-2'rown male animal measures about nine feet from the 

 muzzle to the tail, and stands between five and a half to six feet 

 at the fore-quarters, measuring to the top of the hump. The 

 female is very much smaller in size, being nearly two and a half 

 feet less in length and over a foot shorter. The weight of an 

 average-sized adult animal is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 

 1800 lbs., the female being some seven or eight hundred pounds 

 less. The young animals are distinguished by having a darker 

 and richer brown fur than the old ones, for they assume a hghter 

 hue as age advances. 



Quoting the remarks of Capt. Doyle in the American Naturalist, 

 " white buffaloes have frequently been seen and killed. All the 

 Indian tribes regard them as ' big medicine,' but they have difi'erent 

 superstitions regarding them. For instance, Catlin, the painter, 

 while among the Mandans in 1832, saw a white buflFalo robe erected 

 on a pole in their village as a sacrifice to the Great Spirit. It had 

 been purchased from the Blackfeet, who killed the buffalo, for 

 eight horses and a quantity of goods. On the other hand, the 

 Comanches believe it very dangerous to see a white buffalo. In 

 1869 I saw a young Comanche, who had seen a white buffalo, 

 return to his camp almost dead with fear. He was taken into his 



