282 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



a match for an English bull-dog. The favourite Indian method of killing the 

 bison is by riding up to the fattest of the herd on horseback, and shooting it with 

 an arrow. When a large party of hunters are engaged in this way on an 

 extensive plain, the spectacle is very imposing, and the young men have many 

 opportunities of displaying their skill and agility. The horses appear to enjoy 

 the sport as much as their riders, and are very active in eluding the shock of 

 the animal, should it turn on its pursuer. The most generally-practised plan, 

 however, of shooting the bison, is by crawling towards them from to leeward, and 

 in favourable places great numbers are taken in pounds. When the bison runs, 

 it leans very much to, first, one side for a short space of time, and then to the 

 other, and so on alternately. 



The flesh of a bison in good condition is very juicy and well flavoured, much 

 resembling that of well-fed beef. The tongue is reckoned a delicacy, and may be 

 cured so as to surpass in flavour the tongue of an English cow. The hump 

 of flesh covering the long spinous processes of the first dorsal vertebrae is 

 much esteemed. It is named bos by the Canadian voyagers, and wig by the 

 Orkney men in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. The wig has a fine 

 grain, and when salted and cut transversely it is almost as rich and tender as the 

 tongue. The fine wool which clothes the bison renders its skin when properly 

 dressed an excellent blanket ; and they are valued so highly, that a good one sells 

 for three or four pounds in Canada, where they are used as wrappers by those 

 who travel over the snow in carioles. The wool has been manufactured in 

 England into a remarkably fine and beautiful cloth, and in the colony of 

 Osnaboyna, on the Red River, a warm and durable coarse cloth is formed of it. 

 Much of the pemmican used by the voyagers attached to the fur companies is 

 made of bison meat procured at their posts on the Red River and Saskatchewan. 

 One bison cow in good condition furnishes dried meat and fat enough to make 

 a bag of pemmican weighing 90 lbs. The bison which frequent the woody parts 

 of the country form smaller herds than those which roam over the plains, but are 

 said to be individually of a greater size. 



DESCRIPTION. 



The most remarkable features of the male bison are the enormous size of its head, which is 

 carried low ; the great conical hump between the shoulders, small piercing eyes, short black 

 horns, and the great profusion of shaggy hair on the fore-parts, which all contribute to give to 

 the animal a wild and malicious aspect. The hind quarters, being clothed with shorter wool, 



