The buffalo herds were made up of small companies, consisting of a patriarchal old bull, several cows and a number of young of various ages, and thousands of these companies would graze in the same region, all moving slowly in the same direction, so that travelers would never be out of sight of bison during a whole day's journey. They were more or less nomadic, wandering from one part of the plains to the other in search of fresh pasturage. Thus on the approach of winter a general movement always took place from the high, central plains toward the wanner south, and also into the shelter of the wooded valleys of the foot-hills. In these journeys they had the habit of travel- ing in single file, thus forming long narrow paths, which the plainsmen called °buffalo trails,° yet traceable in many places. In spite of and apparent clumsiness, they rivers vers wtth ease and climbed about the mountains with remarkable ability. less they chose the easiest places, and the marked buffalo-trails were the guides for plorers, and were most deeply imprinted in those mountain passes, which are now the high ways of commerce. The sexes kept together throughout the year, and as is usual among gregarious animals, there was constant fighting among the bulls for the supremacy of their bands, the old leaders being overthrown by younger and more vigorous aspirants, as soon as their strength began to wane. Thus the very best sires were continually selected by the law of battle, and the race kept at its highest point. The herding was a measure of protection against the enemies which hung upon the skirts of every band. The grizzly bear was perhaps the only animal that could vanquish a bison bull in fair fight but pumas and ivolves were ever on the watch to seize any young or feeble ones that strayed from the band. When attacked the band would instantly form a close crowd with the cows and calves in the centre, protected by the bulls, forming a circle with lowered heads on the outside. The calves were born in the spring, a single one, as a rule, to each cow after a gestation of about nine months.
To the western Indians the bison was the principal resource for food and shelter, and was continually hunted. In the days before firearms, the Indians would approach them on foot, by creeping within bowshot on all fours, often disguised in the skin of a calf or an ante lope; or would rush the herd upon horseback.
They also had the practice in rough countries of driving the buffaloes into enclosures or small canyons, where they could easily be slaughtered; or sometimes would force them over a cliff, to be killed by the fall. Besides eating the flesh as fresh meat, vast quantities of it would be cut into strips each autumn, and dried in the sun for winter use; while the northern tribes chopped it into fine pieces, mixed it with ber ries, and preserved it in skin bags, mixed with boiled fat, and so formed the highly portable and nutritious food called °pemmican.° The disappearance of the buffalo consequently meant starvation to the Indians, as well as the loss of the principal material for warm clothing and bedding, and the Indian wars which raged upon the plains, during the third quarter of the 19th century, were mainly due to the desperate efforts made by these people to preserve their hunting-grounds.
Species of fossil bison have been found both in Europe and America, associated with the remains of mammoths, mastodons and other extinct animals of the Quaternary Period. Some of these extinct bison exceeded in size any of the living species, the bony horn-cores in one being six feet from tip to tip (the length of the horns themselves must have been con siderably greater) ; the height of this species is estimated to have been over six feet at the shoulder.
The literature relating to the American buf falo is as extensive as the story of the Western States. The most complete and special accounts are J. A. Alien's monograph, 'The American Bison) republished by the United States Geo logical Survey in 1875; and W. T. Hornaday's 'Extermination of the American Bison,) in the annual report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1887; 'Our Vanishing Wild Life,) also by Dr. Hornaday (New York 1913) ; and the Annual Reports of the American Bison Society. For the more picturesque and adventurous side of the 'animal's history, and its hunting, consult Audu bon's 'Quadrupeds of America' ; • Catlin's 'North American Indians' ; Gregg's 'Commerce of the Prairies' ' • Dodge's 'Black ; Butler's 'Great Lone Land' ; Inman, 'Buffalo Jones: Forty Years of Adventure' (1899) ; and the accounts of western explorations by such writers as Pike, Fremont, Marcy, Long, Emory and Stansbury.