406 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



8. The Cow in the third year. — The young cow of course possesses the 

 same youthful appearance already referred to as characterizing the 

 u spike" bull. The hair on the shoulders has begun to take on the light 

 straw-color, and has by this time attained a length which causes it to 

 arrange itself in tufts, or locks. The body colors have grown darker, 

 and reached their permanent tone. Of course the hair on the head has 

 by no meaus attained its full length, and the head is not at all hand- 

 some. 



The horns are quite small, but the curve is well defined, and they 

 distinctly mark the sex of the individual, even at the beginning of the 

 third year. 



Bison americanus. (Young cow, in third year. Taken October 14, 1886. Montana.) 



• 



(No. 15686, National Museum collection.) 



Feet. Inches. 



Height at shoulders 4 5 



Length, head and body to insertion of tail 7 7 



Depth of chest 2 4 



Depthof flank 1 4 



Girth behind fore leg 5 4 



From base of horns around end of nose 2 8$ 



Length of tail vertebrae 1 



9. The adult Cow. — The upper body color of the adult cow in the Na- 

 tional Museum group (see Plate) is a rich, though not intense, Van- 

 dyke brown, shading imperceptibly down the sides into black, which 

 spreads over the entire under parts and inside of the thighs. The hair 

 on the lower joints of the leg is in turn lighter, being about the same 

 shade as that on the loins. The fore arm is concealed in a mass of 

 almost black hair, which gradually shades lighter from the elbow up- 

 ward and along the whole region of the humerus. On the shoulder 

 itself the hair is pale yellow or straw-color (Naples yellow 4- yellow 

 ocher), which extends down in a poiut toward the elbow. From the 

 back of the head a conspicuous baud of curly, dark-brown hair extends 

 back like a mane along the neck and to the top of the hump, beyond 

 which it soon fades out. 



The hair on the head is everywhere a rich burnt-sienna brown, ex- 

 cept around the corners of the mouth, where it shades into black. 



The horns of the cow bison are slender, but solid for about two-thirds 

 of their length from the tip, ringed with age near their base, and quite 

 black. Very often they are imperfect in shape, and out of every five 

 pairs at least one is generally misshapen. Usually one horn is "crum- 

 pled," e.g. j dwarfed in length and unnaturally thickened at the base, 

 and very often one horn is found to be merely an unsightly, misshapen 

 stub. 



The udder of the cow bison is very small, as might be expected of 

 an auimal which must do a great deal of hard traveling, but the milk 

 is said te bo very rick. Some authorities declare that it requires the 



