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American Buffalo — Part 2
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From careful information furnished him Mr. Hornaday estimated this herd to comprise at lest four million buffalo. He adds: "Twenty years hence, when not even a bone or buffalo-chip remains above ground throughout the West to mark the presence of the buffalo, it may be difficult for people to believe that the animals ever existed in such numbers as to constitute not only a serious annoyance, but very often a dangerous menace to waggon travel across the plains, and also to stop railway trains and even throw them off the track." ("The Extermination of the American Bison." Report U. S. Nat. Mus. 1886-7, an exhaustive treatise from which the substance of this account is taken.)
Buffalo were indiscriminately polygamous, very much as are domestic cattle, and at the breeding season collected in much more compact herds. The combined bellowing of the bulls at such times made a roar that could be heard for several miles. In winter time the herds migrated regularly to the Southern portion of their range.
After reaching their winter pastures in the South they separated more or less and returned North in the spring in scattered herds, making their migration much less conspicuous.
Their rate of travel was much faster than would naturally be inferred from their lumbering appearance, and they seldom swerved from their well-trodden "buffalo paths" for any obstacles.
Rivers a mile wide, when free from ice, were plunged into and crossed without hesitation; in winter, however, the combined weight of the herd sometimes broke the ice beneath them and large numbers were drowned at such times to feed the wolves and other prowlers along the banks when the river broke up in spring freshets.
The mating season was in the fall when the bisons occupied their Southern feeding grounds, the pairs remained in company until the spring when the cows went off by themselves to the most sheltered spots they could find and gave birth to their claves.
The latter grew rapidly and were soon able to follow the herd, though still jealously guarded and defended from all dangers by their mothers.
The old bulls in the meanwhile had associated in droves by themselves.
In order to escape the attacks of the flies and other insects they sought out muddy sloughs and shallow ponds where they could roll and wallow to their hearts' content and emerge with their coats filled and plastered over with clay which soon baked in the sun and formed a hideous but most effective armour which would last for days.
The mud-holes which the bisons made for themselves in this manner have always been known as "buffalo wallows" and are still to be found in regions where the great beasts that made them have been long extinct.
While during the last few years of their existence buffaloes became wary and realized to some extent the danger of close contact with man, they were normally stupid to a degree. As Hornaday says: "The buffalo was an animal of a rather low order of intelligence, and his dullness of intellect was one of the important factors in his phenomenally swift extermination. He was provokingly slow in comprehending the existence and nature of the dangers that threatened his life, and like the stupid brute that he was, would very often stand quietly and see two or three score or even a hundred of his relatives and companions shot down before his eyes with no feeling than one of stupid wonder and curiosity. His stolid indifference to everything he did not understand cost him his existence."
In appearance the bull buffalo was easily the finest of our quadrupeds. "The magnificent dark-brown frontlet and beard of the buffalo, the shaggy coat of hair upon the neck, hump and shoulders, terminating at the knees in a thick mass of luxuriant black locks, to say nothing of the dense coat of finer fur on the body and hind quarters, give to our species a grandeur and nobility of presence, which are beyond all comparison among ruminants." (Hornaday op. cit.)