THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 419 



every old specimen. Often a thickness of half an inch is gone from 

 the upper half of each horn on its outside curve, at which point the 

 horn is worn quite flat. This is well illustrated in the horns shown in 

 the accompanying plate, fig. 6. 



Mr. Catlin* affords some very interesting and valuable information 

 in regard to the bison's propensity for wollowing in mud, and also the 

 origin of the " fairy circles," which have caused so much speculation 

 amongst travelers : 



" 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 of the prairies, where there is a 

 little stagnant water lying amongst the grass, and the ground under- 

 neath being saturated with it, is soft, into which the enormous built 

 lowered down upon one knee, will plunge his horns, and at last his 

 head, driving 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, con- 

 tinually enlarging his pool, in which he at length becomes nearly im- 

 mersed, and the water and mud about him mixed into a complete 

 mortar, which changes his color and drips in streams from every part 

 of him as he rises up upon his feet, a hideous monster of mud and 

 ugliness, too frightful and too eccentric to be described! 



"It is generally the leader of the herd that takes upon him to make 

 this excavation, and if not (but another one opens the ground), the 

 leader (who is conqueror) marches forward, and driving the other from it 

 plunges himself into it; and, having cooled his sides and changed his 

 color to a walking mass of mud and mortar, he stands in the pool until 

 inclination induces him to step out and give place to the next in com- 

 mand who stands ready, and another, and another, who advance for- 

 ward in their turns to enjoy the luxury of the wallow, until the whole 

 band (sometimes a hundred or more) will pass through it in turn,t each 

 one throwing his body around in a similar manner and each one adding 

 a little to the dimensions of the pool, while he carries away in his hair 

 an equal share of the clay, which dries to a gray or whitish color and 

 gradually falls off. By this operation, which is done perhaps in the 

 space of half an hour, a circular excavation of fifteen or twenty feet in 

 diameter and two feet in depth is completed and left for the water to 

 run into, which soon fills it to the level of the ground. 



* North American Indians, vol. i, p. 249, 250. 



t In the District of Columbia work-house we have a counterpart of this in the pub- 

 lic bath-tub, wherein forty prisoners were seen by a Star reporter to bathe one after 

 another in the same water ! 



