486 
YERTEBRATA. 
muscles attached to the highly-developed spinous processes of the last cervical and first dorsal 
vertebrae, forming fit machineiy for the support and movement of the enormous head. The chest 
is broad, and the legs are strong ; the hind parts are narrow, and have a comparatively weak ap- 
pearance. The tail is clothed with short fur-like hair, with a long, straight, coarse, blackish- 
brown tuft at the end. In winter, the whole body is covered with long shaggy hair, which in 
summer falLs olf, leaving the blackish wrinkled skin exposed, except on the forehead, hump, fore- 
quarters, under-jaw, and throat, where the hair is very long and shaggy, and mixed with much 
wool. The general color is brownish-black, the under surface being of a lighter shade. The 
female resembles the male, but is somewhat smaller and of a more delicate structure. 
"When the Europeans began to form settlements in North America, the bison was occasionally, 
though very rarely, met with in the regions near the Atlantic ; it was, in fact, uncommon east of 
the Apalachian chain. As early as the first discovery of Canada it was unknown there. It was 
found tolerably abundant in Kentucky, but the center of its haunts has been, and still is, the 
great plain between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, from latitude 64° south. Here, 
though man — civilized and savage — has made incessant war upon them for a century, and has 
HERD OF BISONS. 
greatly diminished their numbers;, they still roam in vast herds, migrating from one prairie to 
another, as their necessities in respect to pasture demand, A herd of these enormous beasts, 
sometimes amounting to five, ten, and even twenty thousand, stretching as far as the eye can 
reach, over the undulating plains — some bellowing, some fighting, some tearing up the soil — ^the 
very earth trembling beneath the shock, and the air filled with a prolonged and portentous mur- 
mxiv — is said to present a spectacle at once appalling and sublime. 
The breeding season of the bison is in June and July. The females, either singly or several 
together, retire to some solitary spot, remote from the haunts of wolves and bears, and produce 
their young, usually one at a time, and in the months of May or June. These follow the mother 
till the next season. When they are attacked by wolves, the cow bellows and runs at the 
enemy, and sometimes frightens him away. The migrations are generally from north to south 
in autumn, and from south to north in spring. Some remain in the northern regions through the 
winter, and dig away the snow to get at the grass. In some seasons many of them, however, 
perish. Tliey swim the great rivers of the AVest, on which occasions many of the calves are 
drowned from being unable to climb the steep or miry banks. On such occasions the mothers 
