have taken possession of the flat limestone districts of Slave Point, on the north side of that lake, and have wandered to the vicinity of Great Marten Lake, in latitude 63° or 64°. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the limestone and sandstone formations lying between the great Rocky Mountain ridge and the lower eastern chain of primitive rocks, are the only districts in the fur-countries that are frequented by the bison. In these comparatively level tracts there is much prairie land, on which they find good grass in summer; and, also, many marshes overgrown with bulrushes and carices, which supply them with winter food. Salt springs and lakes also abound on the confines of the limestone, and there are several well-known salt-licks, where bison are sure to be found at all seasons of the year. They do not frequent any of the districts formed of primitive rocks. Their migration to the westward were formerly limited by the Rocky Mountain range, and they are still un known in New Caledonia, and on the shores of the Pacific to the north of the Columbia River; but of late years they have found a passage across the mountains near the sources of the Saskatchewan, and their numbers to the wetward are said to be annually increasing. In 1806, when Lewis and Clark crossed the mountains at the head of the Missouri, bison skins were an important article of traffic between the inhabitants on the east side and the natives to the westward. Further to the southward, in New Mexico and California, the bisons appear to be numerous on both sides of the Rocky Mountain chain. The bisons wander constantly from place to place, either from being disturbed by hunters, or in quest of food. They are much attracted by the soft tender grass which springs up after a fire has spread over the prairie. In winter they scrape away the snow with their feet, to reach the grass. The bulls and cows live in separate herds for the greater part of the year; but at all seasons one or two bulls generally accompany a large herd of cows. The bison is in general a shy animal, and takes to flight instantly on scenting an enemy, which the acuteness of its sense of smell enables it to do from a great distance. They are less wary when they are assembled together in numbers, and will then often blindly follow their leaders, regardless of, or trampling down the hunters posted in their way. It is dangerous for the hunter to show himself after having wounded one, for it will pursue him, and although its gait may be heavy and awkward, it will have no difficulty in overtaking the fleetest runner. Many instances might be mentioned of the tenaciousness with which this animal pursues his revenge; and we have been told of a hunter having been detained for many hours in a tree by an old bull, which had taken his post below to watch him. When it contends with a dog, it strikes violently with its fore-feet, and in that way proves more than a match for an English bull-dog. The favorite Indian method of killing the bison, is by riding up to the fattest of the herd on horseback, and shooting it with an arrow. When a large party of hunters are engaged in this way, the spectacle is very imposing, and the young men have many opportunities of displaying their skill and agility. The horses appear to enjoy the sport as much as their riders, and are very active in eluding the shock of the animal should it turn on its pursuer. The most generally practiced plan, however, of shooting the bison, is by crawling towards them from the leeward; and in favorable places, great number are taken in pounds. When the bison runs, it leans very much first t one side for a short space of time, and then to the other, and so o alternately. The flesh of the bison, in good condition, is very juicy and well fla vored, much resembling that of well-fed beef. The tongue is considered a delicacy, and may be cured so as to surpass in flavor the tongue of an English cow. The hump of flesh covering the long spinous processes of the first dorsal vertebræ is much esteemed. It is named bos by the Canadian voyagers, and wig by the Orkney men in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. The wig has a fine grain, and when salted and cut traversely, it is almost as rich and tender as the tongue. The fine wool which clothes the bison renders its skin, when properly dressed, an excellent blanket. The wool has been manufactured in England into a remarkably fine and beautiful cloth, and in the colony of Osnaboyna, on the Red River, a warm and durable coarse cloth is made of it. Much of the pemmican used by the voyagers attached to the fur-companies, is made of bison-meat, procured at their posts on the Red River and Saskatchewan. One bison cow in good condition furnishes good meat and fat enough to make a bag of pemmican weighing 109 pounds. The bisons which frequent the woody parts of the country form smaller herds than those which roam over the plains, but are said to be individually of a greater size. The herds of bisons wander over the country in search of food, usually led by a bull most remarkable for strength and fierceness. While feeding, they are often scattered over a great extent of country, but when they move in mass, they form a dense and almost impenetrable column, which, once in motion, is scarcely to be impeded. Their line of march is seldom interrupted, even by considerable rivers, across which they swim without fear or hesitation, nearly in the order that they traverse the plains. When flying before their pursuers, it would be in vain for the foremost to halt, or to attempt to obstruct the progress of the main body, as the throng in the rear, still rushing onward, the leaders must advance, although destruction awaits the movement. The Indians take advantage of this circumstance to destroy great quantities of this favorite game; and certainly no mode could be resorted to more effectually destructive, nor could a more terrible devastation be procured, than that of forcing a numerous herd of these large animals to leap together from the brink of a dreadful precipice, upon a rocky and unbroken surface, a hundred feet below. When the Indians determine to destroy bisons in this way, one of their swiftest-footed and most active young men is selected, who is disguised in a bison skin, having the head, ears, and horns adjusted on his own head, so as to make the deception very complete, and thus accoutred, he stations himself between the bison herd and some of the preci pices, which often extend for several miles along the river. The Indians surround the herd as nearly as possible, when, at a given signal, they show themselves, and rush forward with loud yells. The animals being alarmed, and seeing no way open but in the direction of the disguised Indian, run towards him, and he, taking to flight, dashes on to the precipice, where he suddenly secures himself in some previously ascertained crevice. The foremost of the herd arrives at the brink; there is no possibility of retreat, no chance of escape; the foremost may for an instant shrink with terror, but the crowd behind, who are terrified by the approaching hunters, rush forward with increasing impetuosity, and the aggregated force hurls them successively into the gulf, where certain death awaits them. These animals have been seen in herds of three, four, and five thousand, blackening the plain as far as eye could view. At night, it is impossible for persons to sleep near them who are unaccustomed to their noise, which, from the incessant lowing and roaring of the bulls, is said to resemble distant thunder. Although frequent battles take place between the bulls, as among domestic cattle, the habits of the bison are peaceful and inoffensive, seldom or never offering to attack man or other animals, unless outraged in the first instance. The following vivid description of a buffalo-hunt, is from Washington Irving's tour on the prairies. Mr. Irving remarks: "Having made two or three ineffectual shots from horseback, we determined not to seek the camp until we had made one more effort. Casting our eyes about the surrounding waste, we descried a herd of buffalo about two miles distant, scattered apart, and quietly grazing near a small strip of trees and bushes. It required but little stretch of fancy to picture them so many cattle grazing on the edge of a common, and that the grove might shelter some lowly farm-house. "We now formed our plan to circumvent the herd, and by getting on the other side of them, to hunt them in the direction where we knew our camp to be situated; otherwise, the pursuit might take us to such a distance as to render it impossible for us to find our way back before nightfall. Taking a wide circuit, therefore, we moved slowly and cautiously, pausing occasionally, when we saw any of the herd desist from grazing. The wind fortunately set from them, otherwise they might have scented is and have taken the alarm. In this way, we succeeded in getting round the herd without disturbing it. It consisted of about forty head, bulls, cows and calves. Separating to some distance from each other, we now approached slowly in a parallel line, hoping by degrees to steal near without exciting attention. They began, however, to move off quietly, stopping at every step or two to graze, when suddenly a bull that, unobserved by us, had been taking his siesta under a clump of trees to our left, roused himself from his lair, and hastened to join his companions. We were still at a considerable distance, but the game had taken the alarm. We quickened our pace, they broke into a gallop, and now commenced a full chase. "As the ground was level, they shouldered along with great speed, following each other in a line; two or three bulls bringing up the rear, the last of whom, from his enormous size and venerable frontlet, and beard of sunburnt hair, looked like the patriarch of the herd, and as if he might long have reigned the monarch of the prairie. "There is a mixture of the awful and the comic in the look of these huge animals, as they bear their great bulk forward, with an up-and-down motion of the unwieldly head and shoulders; their tail cocked up like the queue of Pantaloon in a pantomime, the end whisking about in a fierce yet whimsical style, and their eyes glaring venomously with an expression of fright and fury. "For sometime I kept parallel with the line, without being able to force my horse within pistol-shot, so much had he been alarmed by the assault of the buffalo, in the preceding chase. At length I succeeded, but was again balked by my pistols missing fire. My companions, whose horses were less fleet, and more way worn, could not overtake the herd; at length, Mr. L., who was in the rear of the line, and losing ground, leveled his double-barreled gun, and fired a long raking shot. It struck a buffalo just above the loins, broke its backbone, and brought it to the ground. He stopped and alighted to dispatch his prey, when, borrowing his gun which had yet a charge remaining in it, I put my horse to his speed, again overtook the herd which was thundering along, pursued by the count. With my present weapon there was no need of urging my horse to such close quarters; galloping along parallel, therefore, I singled out a buffalo, and by a fortunate shot brought it down on the spot. The ball had struck a vital part; it would not move from the place where it fell, but lay there struggling in mortal agony, while the rest of the herd kept on their headlong career across the prairie. "Dismounting, I now fettered my horse to prevent his straying, and advanced to contemplate my victim. I am nothing of a sportsman: I had been prompted to this unwonted exploit by the magnitude of the game, and the excitement of an adventurous chase. Now that the excitement was over, I could not but look with commiseration upon the poor animal that lay struggling and bleeding at my feet. His very size and importance, which had before inspired me with eagerness, now increased my compunction. It seemed as if I had inficited pain in proportion to the bulk of my victim, and as if there were a hundred fold greater waste of life than there would have been in the destruction of an animal of inferior size. "To add to these after-qualms of conscience, the poor animal lingered in his agony. He had evidently received a mortal wound, but death might be long in coming. It would not do to leave him here to be torn piecemeal, while yet alive, by the wolves that had already snuffed his blood, and were skulking and howling at a distance, and waiting for my departure, and by the ravens that were flapping about, croaking dismally in the air. It became now an act of mercy to give him his quietus, and put him out of his misery. I primed one of the pistols, therefore, and advanced close up to the buffalo. To inflict a wound thus in cool blood, I found a totally different thing from firing in the heat of the chase. Taking aim, however, just behind the fore-shoulder, my pistol for once proved true; the ball must have passed through the heart, for the animal gave one convulsive throe and expired. "While I stood meditating and moralizing over the wreck I had so wantonly produced, with my horse grazing near me, I was rejoined by my fellow-sportsman, the virtuoso; who, being a man of universal adroitness, and withal, more experienced and hardened in the gentle art of 'venerie,' soon managed to carve out the tongue of the buffalo, and delivered it to me to bear back to the camp as a trophy." Immensely variegated as is the surface of the globe, there are still but few of its features that present an aspect of more surpassing interest and beauty than the far-lengthening, wide-expanding prairie. The oceans, the mountains, the hills, the valleys, the torrents and rivers, afford thousands of most admirable scenes, but the face of a prairie smiles with surpassing charms, with indescribable loveliness. "Lo! they stretch As if an ocean in its gentlest swell Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers, And pass the prairie-hawk, that, poised on high, Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks A nobler or a lovelier scene than this? Man hath no part in all this glorious work: The hand that built the firmament hath heaved And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their hopes And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor For this magnificent temple of the sky- Than that which bends above the eastern hills." Stretching far away with indistinct boundaries, or merging into the horizon, the southern prairie appears like a vast sea; its undulations, the seeming swells, its clumps of trees, the islands. Whether the tall luxuriant grass, mingled with an innumerable variety of flowers loaded with perfume, waves upon its surface, or is shorn close like a pasture, it always exhibits the aspect of unequaled fertility and beauty, "And the heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness." The rich clumps of fine trees, collected together here and there in every possible form, and of every species, and some of them planted |