402 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



rest of the way up. The curve of the horn is generally hidden in the 

 hair, and the ouly part visible is the straight, terminal spike. Usually 

 the spike points diverge from each other, but often they are parallel, 

 and also perpendicular. In the fourth year, however, the points of the 

 horns begin to curve inward toward each other, describing equal arcs 

 of the same circle, as if they were going to meet over the top of the head. 



In the handsome young " spike" bull in the Museum group, the hair 

 on the shoulders has begun to take on the length, the light color, and 

 tufted appearance of the adult, beginning at the highest point of the 

 hump and gradually spreading. Immediately back of this light patch 

 the hair is long, but dark and woolly in appearance. The leg tufts have 

 doubled in length, and reveal the character of the growth that may be 

 finally expected. The beard has greatly lengthened, as also has the 

 hair upon the bridge of the nose, the forehead, ears, jaws, and all other 

 portions of the head except the cheeks. 



The " spike" period of a buffalo is a most interesting one. Like a 

 seventeen-year-old boy, the young bull shows his youth in so many ways 

 it is always conspicuous, and his countenance is so suggestive of a half- 

 bearded youth it fixes the interest to a marked degree. He is active, 

 alert, and suspicious, and when he makes up his mind to run the hunter 

 may as well give up the chase. 



By a strange fatality, our spike bull appears to be the only one in any 

 museum, or even in preserved existence, as far as can be ascertained. 

 Out of the twenty-five buffaloes killed and preserved by the Smith- 

 sonian expedition, ten of which were adult bulls, this specimen was the 

 only male between the yearling and the adult ages. An effort to pro- 

 cure another entire specimen of this age from Texas yielded only two 

 spike heads. It is to be sincerely regretted that more specimens repre- 

 senting this very interesting period of the buffalo's life have not been 

 preserved, for it is now too late to procure wild specimens. 



The following are the postmortem dimensions of our specimen: 



Bison americanus. 



(" Spike" bull, two years old; taken October 14, 1886. Montana.) 



(No. 15685, National Museum collection.) 



Feet. Inches. 



Height at shoulders 4 2 



Length, head and body to insertion of tail 7 7 



Depth of chest 2 3 



Depth of flank - 1 7 



Girth behind fore leg 5 8 



From base of horns around end of nose 2 8£ 



Length of tail vertebrae 1 



7. The Adult Bull.— In attempting to describe the adult male in the 

 National Museum group, it is dim cult to decide which feature is most 

 prominent, the massive, magnificent head, with its shaggy frontlet and 

 luxuriant black beard, or the lofty hump, with its showy covering of 



