Volume 1

Cassell's popular natural history.

Date:
[1865-1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cassell's popular natural history. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    724/824 (page 286)
    sagacity in defending themselves against the attacks of their fierce persecutors, he adds, on the authority of Dti Pratz : “ When they scent the approach of a drove of these ravenous creatures, the herd fiings itself into the form of a circle; the weakest keep in the middle, the strongest are ranged on the outside, presenting to the enemy an impenetrable front of horns; should they be taken by surprise, and have recourse to flight, numbers of the fattest or the weakest are sure to perish.” Sir John Richardson, however, speaking of the numerous wolves on the sandy plains, which, lying to the eastward of the Rocky Mountains, extend from the sources of the Peace and Saskatchewan rivers towards the Missouri, says that tliei’e bands of them hang on the skirts of the buffalo herds, and prey on the sick and straggling calves, but that they do not, under ordinary circumstances, venture to attack the full-grown animal. As a proof of this, he adds, that the hunters informed him that they often saw wolves walking through a herd of bulks without exciting the least alarm, and that the marksmen, when they crawl towards a bison for the purpose of shooting it, occasionally wear a cap with two ears in imitation of the head of a wolf, knowing from experience that they will be suffered to approach nearer in that guise. INDIAN'S, DISGUISED AS WOLVES, APPROACHING A HERD OF UISONS. Nor are the benefits derived from the bison restricted to the flesh and the tallow. Sir John Richardson states that the wool has been manufactured in England, into a remarkably fine and beautiful cloth ; and that, in the colony of Osnaboyna, in the Red River, a warm and durable coarse cloth is formed from it. According to Catesby, the hide, which is too heavy for the strongest man to lift from the ground, is very valuable, and used for a variety of purposes. He says that the Indians make their moccasins of it, but that, from its weight, it is not often used for clothing. Purchas relates that, in old times, the best targets were made of it. The horns of the bison are made into powder flasks. A fine specimen of the bison, recently shot in the prairies by the Hon. Grantley Berkley, may be seen in the window of tl\e Field office, in the Strand. THE BUFFALO* The following are the characteristics of this animal :—Forehead convex, rounded ; horns, large, flattened at the base, black on the plane of the face, bent down and recurved at the tip ; ears quite half the length of the head1, slightly ciliated; fur rough, irregular, bristly, often very far apart, on the face before the eyes two-rowed. Mr. Hodgson, who has given us much information as to the Indian buffaloes, says : “The bhainsa, or tame buffalo, is universal in India. The arnn, or wild buffalo, inhabits the margins, rather than Bt>» Butlalus. B. bubulua. Linoicug.—Children; Baffle, French; nnd Bilffcl, Herman.