THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 42o 



habit almost totally disappeared, and the harried survivors learned to 

 run for the regions which offered the greatest safety. But even to-day, 

 if a Texas hunter should go into the Staked Plains, and descry in the 

 distance a body of animals running against the wind, he would, without 

 a moment's hesitation, pronounce them buffaloes, and the chances are 

 that he would be right. 



In winter the buffalo used to face the storms, instead of turning tail 

 and " drifting" before them helplessly, as domestic cattle do. But at 

 the same time, when beset by a blizzard, he would wisely seek shelter 

 from it in some narrow and deep valley or system of ravines. There 

 the herd would lie down and wait patiently for the storm to cease. 

 After a heavy fall of snow, the place to find the buffalo was in the flats 

 and creek bottoms, where the tall, rank bunch-grasses showed their 

 tops above the snow, and afforded the best and almost the only food 

 obtainable. 



When the snow-fall was unusually heavy, and lay for a long time on 

 the ground, the buffalo was forced to fast for days together, and some- 

 times even weeks. If a warm day came, and thawed the upper surface 

 of the snow sufficiently for succeeding cold to freeze it into a crust, the 

 outlook for the bison began to be serious. A man can travel over a 

 crust through which the hoofs of a ponderous bison cut like chisels and 

 leave him floundering belly-deep. It was at such times that the Indians 

 hunted him on snow-shoes, and drove their spears into his vitals as he 

 wallowed helplessly in the drifts. Then the wolves grew fat upon the 

 victims which they, also, slaughtered almost without effort. 



Although buffaloes did not often actually perish from hunger and 

 cold during the severest winters (save in a few very exceptional cases), 

 they often came out in very poor condition. The old bulls always 

 suffered more severely than the rest, and at the end of winter were fre- 

 quently in miserable plight. 



Unlike most other terrestrial quadrupeds of America, so long as he 

 could roam at will the buffalo had settled migratory habits.* While 

 the elk and black-tail deer change their altitude twice a year, in con- 

 formity with the approach and disappearance of winter, the buffalo 

 makes a radical change of latitude. This was most noticeable in the 

 great western pasture region, where the herds were most numerous and 

 their movements most easily observed. 



*On page 248 of his "North American Indians," vol. I, Mr. Catlin declares point- 

 edly that "these animals are, truly speaking, gregarious, but not migratory; they 

 graze in immense and almost incredible numbers at times, and roam about and over 

 vast tracts of country from east to west and from west to east as often as from north 

 to south, which has often been supposed they naturally and habitually did to ac- 

 commodate themselves to the temperature of the climate in the different latitudes." 

 Had Mr. Catlin resided continuously in any one locality on the great buffalo range, 

 he would have found that the buffalo had decided migratory habits. The abundance 

 of proof on this point renders it unnecessary to enter fully into the details of the 

 subject. 



