444 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



and all bull skins from one to three years old. Bull skins over three 

 years of age were classed as hides, and while the best of them were 

 finally tanned and used as robes, the really poor ones were converted 

 into leather. The large robes, when tanned, were used very generally 

 throughout the colder portions of North America as sleigh robes and 

 wraps, and for bedding in the regions of extreme cold. The small 

 robes, from the young animals, and likewise many large robes, were 

 made into overcoats, at once the warmest and the most cumbersome 

 that ever enveloped a human being. Thousands of old bull robes were 

 tanned with the hair on, and the body portions were made into over- 

 shoes, with the woolly hair inside— absurdly large and uncouth, but 

 very warm. 



I never wore a pair of buffalo overshoes without being torn by con- 

 flicting emotions — mortification at the ridiculous size of my combined 

 foot- gear, big boots inside of huge overshoes, and supreme comfort de- 

 rived from feet that were always warm. 



Besides the ordinary robe, the hunters and fur buyers of Montana 

 recognized four special qualities, as follows: 



The "beaver robe," with exceedingly fine, wavy fur, the color of a 

 beaver, and having long, coarse, straight hairs coming through it. The 

 latter were of course plucked out in the process of manufacture. These 

 were very rare. In 188*2 Mr. James McNaney took one, a cow robe, the 

 only one out of 1,200 robes taken that season, and sold it for $75, when 

 ordinary robes fetched only $3.50. 



The "black-and-tan robe" is described as having the nose, flanks, and 

 inside of fore legs black arid-tan (whatever that may mean), while the 

 remainder of the robe is jet black. 



A "buckskin robe" is from what is always called a "white buffalo, /? 

 and is in reality a dirty cream color instead of white. A robe of this 

 character sold in Miles City in 1882 for $200, and was the only one of 

 that character taken on the northern range during that entire winter. 

 A very few pure white robes have been taken, so I have been told, 

 chiefly by Indians, but I have never seen one. 



A "blue robe" or "mouse-colored (?) robe" is one on which the body 

 color shows a decidedly bluish cast, and at the same time has long, fine 

 fur. Out of his 1,200 robes taken in 1882, Mr. McXaney picked out 12 

 which passed muster as the much sought for blue robes, and they sold 

 at $10 each. 



As already intimated, the price paid on the range for ordinary buf- 

 falo skins varied according to circumstances, and at different periods, 

 and in different localities, ranged all the way from 05 cents to $10. The 

 1 itt/r figure was paid in Texas in 1887 for the last lot of " robes " ever 

 taken The lowest prices ever paid were during the tremendous 

 slaughter which annihilated the southern herd. Even as late as L87G, 

 in the southern country, cow robes brought on the range only from G5 



