380 WILD ANIMALS. 



soutli. Many chiefs, witli tlie veracity of their race, would 

 solemnly declare that they had seen this cave and the herds 

 emerging. Now the buffalo no longer comes, these same men 

 declare some bad god or medicine-man has shut up the hole so 

 that the red-man must starve. Anyhow, they will hunt the 

 buffalo no more. The stampeding herds, their thundering tread, 

 the racing horses, and the successful kill will never again 

 supply excitement to their savage natures, but when they lie 

 down to take their long sleep this fact may enhance the charm of 

 the happy hunting-grounds for which they think they are bound, 

 where, once more undisturbed by the white man, the illimitable 

 prairie will vibrate with the wild rush of millions of buflFaloes, and 

 the red-mens' souls be comforted. 



Travellers crossing the plains can soon recognize the territories 

 that were frequented by buffaloes, for the skulls and bones of the 

 animals slain by the hunters, or of those that through sickness fell 

 victims to the wolf or the grizzly bear, will be seen scattered 

 about and bleaching in the sun, and the earth will be found dug 

 up into holes or wallows. 



Oatlin, who spent eight years among the Indians, makes some 

 very interesting observations in his books concerning the buffalo. 

 In his " Letters and Notes " he describes these wallows. " In the 

 heat of summer these huge animals, which, no doubt, suffer very 

 much with the great profusion of their long and shaggy hair or 

 fur, often graze on the low grounds in the prairies, where there is 

 a little stagnant water lying amongst the grass, and the ground 

 underneath being saturated with it, it is soft, into which the 

 enormous bull, lowered down upon one knee, will plunge his horns, 

 and at last his head, drawing up the earth, and soon making an 

 excavation in the ground, into which the water filters from amongst 

 the grass, forming for him in a few moments, a cool and 

 comfortable bath, into which he plunges like a hog in his mire. 



" In this delectable laver, he throws himself flat upon his side, 

 and forcing himself violently around, with his horns and his huge 

 hump on his shoulders presented to the sides, he ploughs up the 

 ground by his rotary motion, sinking himself deeper and deeper 

 in the ground, continually enlarging his pool, in which at length 



