BUFFALO AND MUSK OX 
the horns of the big bull. There may be some foundation for this myth, for 
old residents in the west used to say that the skulls of buffalo, still holding 
the black frontlet of hair, were often used by small birds as nesting places. 
Mr Thompson -Seton relates an instance of a single cow-bird which, 
instead of migrating in the autumn of 1900, stayed with a herd of buffalo 
in the park at Silver Heights, near Winnipeg, throughout the winter. This 
little bird attached itself to a big bull that was so fierce that no one dared 
go near to him. By day it fed on the buffalo’s food and at night it roosted in 
a hollow it had made in the wool just behind the horns. 
Catlin gives an interesting description of a buffalo wallow (“ North 
American Indians,” Vol. I, pp. 249, 250). 
“ 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 in the prairies, where 
there is a little stagnant water lying amongst the grass, and the 
ground underneath, being saturated with it, is soft, into which the 
enormous bull, lowered down upon one knee, will plunge his horns, 
and at last his head, driving up the earth, and soon making an exca- 
vation 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, 
continually enlarging his pool, in which he at length becomes nearly 
immersed, and the water and mud about him mixed into a complete 
mortar, which changes his colour, 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.” 
These wallows dotted the prairies in every direction and, although most 
of the skulls and bones have now been removed, they bear silent witness 
to the great numbers of buffaloes which once lived there. 
The leader of the northern migration in spring was always an old cow, 
and her instinct to move was quickly transmitted to the rest of the band, 
numbering hundreds of thousands. For two or three weeks this migration 
used to take place with all its attendant risks, such as the attacks of man and 
wolves and the danger of crossing swollen or treacherous rivers, until 
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