<p><SPAN name="i_iv_5" id="i_iv_5"></SPAN>5. <i>The Yearling.</i>—During the first five months of his life, the calf
changes its coat completely, and becomes in appearance a totally
different animal. By the time he is six months old he has taken on all
the colors which distinguish him in after life, excepting that upon his
fore quarters. The hair on the head has started out to attain the
luxuriant length and density which is so conspicuous in the adult, and
its general color is a rich dark brown, shading to black under the chin
and throat. The fringe under the neck is long, straight, and black, and
the under parts, the back of the fore arm, the outside of thigh, and the
tail-tuft are all black.</p>
<p>The color of the shoulder, the side, and upper part of the hind quarter
is a peculiar smoky brown (“broccoli brown” of Ridgway), having in
connection with the darker browns of the other parts a peculiar faded
appearance, quite as if it were due to the bleaching power of the sun.
On the fore quarters there is none of the bright straw color so
characteristic of the adult animal. Along the top of the neck and
shoulders, however, this color has at last begun to show faintly. The
hair on the body is quite luxuriant, both in length and density, in both
respects quite equaling, if not even surpassing, that of the finest
adults. For example, the hair on the side of the mounted yearling in the
Museum group has a length of 2 to 2½ inches, while that on the same
region of the adult bull, whose pelage is particularly fine, is recorded
as being 2 inches only.</p>
<p>The horn is a straight, conical spike from 4 to 6 inches long, according
to age, and perfectly black. The legs are proportionally longer and
larger in the joints than those of the full-grown animal. The
countenance of the yearling is quite interesting. The sleepy, helpless,
innocent expression of the very young calf has given place to a
wide-awake, mischievous look, and he seems ready to break away and run
at a second’s notice.</p>
<p>The measurements of the yearling in the Museum group are as follows:</p>
<h4>BISON AMERICANUS. (Male yearling, taken Oct. 31, 1886. Montana.)</h4>
<h5>(<i>No. 15694, National Museum collection.</i>)</h5>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="center">Feet.</td><td align="center">Inches.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders</td><td align="center"><tt>3</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 5 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length, head and body to insertion of tail</td><td align="center"><tt>5</tt></td><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of chest</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>11 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of flank</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 1 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Girth behind fore leg</td><td align="center"><tt>4</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 3 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">From base of horns around end of nose</td><td align="center"><tt>2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 1½</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length of tail vertebræ</td><td align="center"> </td><td align="center"><tt>10 </tt></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><SPAN name="i_iv_6" id="i_iv_6"></SPAN>6. <i>The Spike Bull.</i>—In hunters’ parlance, the male buffalo between the
“yearling” age and four years is called a “spike” bull, in recognition
of the fact that up to the latter period the horn is a spike, either
perfectly straight, or with a curve near its base, and a straight point
the <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_402"></SPAN></span>rest of the way up. The curve of the horn is generally hidden in
the hair, and the only part visible is the straight, terminal spike.
Usually the spike points diverge from each other, but often they are
parallel, and also perpendicular. In the fourth year, however, the
points of the horns begin to curve inward toward each other, describing
equal arcs of the same circle, as if they were going to meet over the
top of the head.</p>
<p>In the handsome young “spike” bull in the Museum group, the hair on the
shoulders has begun to take on the length, the light color, and tufted
appearance of the adult, beginning at the highest point of the hump and
gradually spreading. Immediately back of this light patch the hair is
long, but dark and woolly in appearance. The leg tufts have doubled in
length, and reveal the character of the growth that may be finally
expected. The beard has greatly lengthened, as also has the hair upon
the bridge of the nose, the forehead, ears, jaws, and all other portions
of the head except the cheeks.</p>
<p>The “spike” period of a buffalo is a most interesting one. Like a
seventeen-year-old boy, the young bull shows his youth in so many ways
it is always conspicuous, and his countenance is so suggestive of a
half-bearded youth it fixes the interest to a marked degree. He is
active, alert, and suspicious, and when he makes up his mind to run the
hunter may as well give up the chase.</p>
<p>By a strange fatality, our spike bull appears to be the only one in any
museum, or even in preserved existence, as far as can be ascertained.
Out of the twenty-five buffaloes killed and preserved by the Smithsonian
expedition, ten of which were adult bulls, this specimen was the only
male between the yearling and the adult ages. An effort to procure
another entire specimen of this age from Texas yielded only two spike
heads. It is to be sincerely regretted that more specimens representing
this very interesting period of the buffalo’s life have not been
preserved, for it is now too late to procure wild specimens.</p>
<p>The following are the post-mortem dimensions of our specimen:</p>
<h4>BISON AMERICANUS.</h4>
<h4>(“Spike” bull, two years old; taken October 14, 1886. Montana.)</h4>
<h5>(<i>No. 15685, National Museum collection.</i>)</h5>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="center">Feet.</td><td align="center">Inches.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders</td><td align="center"><tt>4</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 2 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length, head and body to insertion of tail</td><td align="center"><tt>7</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 7 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of chest</td><td align="center"><tt>2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 3 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of flank</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 7 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Girth behind fore leg</td><td align="center"><tt>6</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 8 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">From base of horns around end of nose</td><td align="center"><tt>2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 8½</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length of tail vertebræ</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td> </td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><SPAN name="i_iv_7" id="i_iv_7"></SPAN>7. <i>The Adult Bull.</i>—In attempting to describe the adult male in the
National Museum group, it is difficult to decide which feature is most
prominent, the massive, magnificent head, with its shaggy frontlet and
luxuriant black beard, or the lofty hump, with its showy covering of
straw-yellow hair, in thickly-growing locks 4 inches long. But the head
is irresistible in its claims to precedence.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_403"></SPAN></span></p>
<p><SPAN name="spike_bull" id="spike_bull"></SPAN></p>
<div class="center">
<ANTIMG src="images/006.jpg" alt="SPIKE BULL." title="SPIKE BULL" /></div>
<h4><span class="sc">Spike Bull.</span><br/>From the group in the National Museum.<br/>
Reproduced from the <i>Cosmopolitan Magazine</i>, by permission of the
publishers.</h4>
<p>It must be observed at this point that in many respects this animal is
an exceptionally fine one. In actual size of frame, and in quantity and
quality of pelage, it is far superior to the average, even of wild
buffaloes when they were most numerous and at their best.<SPAN name="fnanchor_30_30" id="fnanchor_30_30"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</SPAN> In one
respect, however, that of actual bulk, it is believed that this specimen
may have often been surpassed. When buffaloes were numerous, and not
required to do any great amount of running in order to exist, they were,
in the autumn months, very fat. Audubon says: “A large bison bull will
generally weigh nearly 2,000 pounds, and a fat cow about 1,200 pounds.
We weighed one of the bulls killed by our party, and found it to reach
1,727 pounds, although it had already lost a good deal of blood. This
was an old bull, and not fat. It had probably weighed more at some
previous period.”<SPAN name="fnanchor_31_31" id="fnanchor_31_31"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</SPAN> Our specimen when killed (by the writer, December
6, 1886) was in full vigor, superbly muscled, and well fed, but he
carried not a single pound of fat. For years the never-ceasing race for
life had utterly prevented the secretion of useless and cumbersome fat,
and his “subsistence” had gone toward the development of useful muscle.
Having no means by which to weigh him, we could only estimate his
weight, in which I called for the advice of my cowboys, all of whom were
more or less familiar with the weight of range cattle, and one I
regarded as an expert. At first the estimated weight of the animal was
fixed at 1,700 pounds, but with a constitutional fear of estimating over
the truth, I afterward reduced it to 1,600 pounds. This I am now well
convinced was an error, for I believe the first figure to have been
nearer the truth.</p>
<p>In mounting the skin of this animal, we endeavored by every means in our
power, foremost of which were three different sets of measurements,
taken from the dead animal, one set to check another, to reproduce him
when mounted in exactly the same form he possessed in life—muscular,
but not fat.</p>
<p>The color of the body and hindquarters of a buffalo is very peculiar,
and almost baffles intelligent description. Audubon calls it “between a
dark umber and liver-shining brown.” I once saw a competent artist
experiment with his oil-colors for a quarter of an hour before he
finally struck the combination which exactly matched the side of our
large bull. To my eyes, the color is a pale gray-brown or smoky gray.
The range of individual variation is considerable, some being uniformly <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_404"></SPAN></span>
darker than the average type, and others lighter. While the under parts
of most adults are dark brown or blackish brown, others are actually
black. The hair on the body and hinder parts is fine, wavy on the
outside, and woolly underneath, and very dense. Add to this the
thickness of the skin itself, and the combination forms a covering that
is almost impervious to cold.</p>
<p>The entire fore quarter region, <i>e. g.</i>, the shoulders, the hump, and
the upper part of the neck, is covered with a luxuriant growth of pale
yellow hair (Naples yellow + yellow ocher), which stands straight out in
a dense mass, disposed in handsome tufts. The hair is somewhat woolly in
its nature, and the ends are as even as if the whole mass had lately
been gone over with shears and carefully clipped. This hair is 4 inches
in length. As the living animal moved his head from side to side, the
hair parted in great vertical furrows, so deep that the skin itself
seemed almost in sight. As before remarked, to comb this hair would
utterly destroy its naturalness, and it should never be done under any
circumstances. Standing as it does between the darker hair of the body
on one side and the almost black mass of the head on the other, this
light area is rendered doubly striking and conspicuous by contrast. It
not only covers the shoulders, but extends back upon the thorax, where
it abruptly terminates on a line corresponding to the sixth rib.</p>
<p>From the shoulder-joint downward, the color shades gradually into a dark
brown until at the knee it becomes quite black. The huge fore-arm is
lost in a thick mass of long, coarse, and rather straight hair 10 inches
in length. This growth stops abruptly at the knee, but it hangs within 6
inches of the hoof. The front side of this mass is blackish brown, but
it rapidly shades backward and downward into jet-black.</p>
<p>The hair on the top of the head lies in a dense, matted mass, forming a
perfect crown of rich brown (burnt sienna) locks, 16 inches in length,
hanging over the eyes, almost enveloping both horns, and spreading back
in rich, dark masses upon the light-colored neck.</p>
<p>On the cheeks the hair is of the same blackish brown color, but
comparatively short, and lies in beautiful waves. On the bridge of the
nose the hair is about 6 inches in length and stands out in a thick,
uniform, very curly mass, which always looks as if it had just been
carefully combed.</p>
<p>Immediately around the nose and mouth the hair is very short, straight
and stiff, and lies close to the skin, which leaves the nostrils and
lips fully exposed. The front part of the chin is similarly clad, and
its form is perfectly flat, due to the habit of the animal in feeding
upon the short, crisp buffalo grass, in the course of which the chin is
pressed flat against the ground. The end of the muzzle is very massive,
measuring 2 feet 2 inches in circumference just back of the nostrils.</p>
<p>The hair of the chin-beard is coarse, perfectly straight, jet black, and
11½ inches in length on our old bull.</p>
<p>Occasionally a bull is met with who is a genuine Esau amongst his kind.
I once saw a bull, of medium size but fully adult, whose hair <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_405"></SPAN></span>was a
wonder to behold. I have now in my possession a small lock of hair which
I plucked from his forehead, and its length is 22½ inches. His horns
were entirely concealed by the immense mass of long hair that nature had
piled upon his head, and his beard was as luxuriant as his frontlet.</p>
<p><SPAN name="bull_buffalo" id="bull_buffalo"></SPAN></p>
<div class="center">
<ANTIMG src="images/007.jpg" alt="BULL BUFFALO" title="BULL BUFFALO" /></div>
<h4><span class="sc">Bull Buffalo in National Museum Group.</span><br/>Drawn by Ernest E.
Thompson.</h4>
<p>The nostril opening is large and wide. The color of the hairless
portions of the nose and mouth is shiny Vandyke brown and black, with a
strong tinge of bluish-purple, but this latter tint is not noticeable
save upon close examination, and the eyelid is the same. The iris is of
an irregular pear-shaped outline, 1-5/16 inches in its longest diameter,
very dark, reddish brown in color, with a black edging all around it.
Ordinarily no portion of the white eyeball is visible, but the broad
black band surrounding the iris, and a corner patch of white, is
frequently shown by the turning of the eye. The tongue is bluish purple,
as are the lips inside.</p>
<p>The hoofs and horns are, in reality, jet black throughout, but the horn
often has at the base a scaly, dead appearance on the outside, and as
the wrinkles around the base increase with age and scale up and gather
dirt, that part looks gray. The horns of bulls taken in their prime are
smooth, glossy black, and even look as if they had been half polished
with oil.</p>
<p>As the bull increases in age, the outer layers of the horn begin to
break off at the tip and pile up one upon another, until the horn has
become a thick, blunt stub, with only the tip of what was once a neat
and shapely point showing at the end. The bull is then known as a
“stub-horn,” and his horns increase in roughness and unsightliness as he
grows older. From long rubbing on the earth, the outer curve of each
horn is gradually worn flat, which still further mars its symmetry.</p>
<p>The horns serve as a fair index of the age of a bison. After he is three
years old, the bison adds each year a ring around the base of his horns,
the same as domestic cattle. If we may judge by this, the horn begins to
break when the bison is about ten or eleven years old, and the stubbing
process gradually continues during the rest of his life. Judging by the
teeth, and also the oldest horns I have seen, I am of the opinion that
the natural life time of the bison is about twenty-five years; certainly
no less.</p>
<h4>BISON AMERICANUS.</h4>
<h4>(Male, eleven years old. Taken December 6, 1866. Montana.)</h4>
<h5>(<i>No. 15703, National Museum collection.</i>)</h5>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="center"> </td><td align="center">Feet.</td><td align="center">Inches.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders to the skin</td><td align="center"><tt> 5</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 8 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders to top of hair</td><td align="center"><tt> 6</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> — </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length, head and body to insertion of tail</td><td align="center"><tt>10</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 2 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of chest</td><td align="center"><tt> 3</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>10 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of flank</td><td align="center"><tt> 2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 0 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Girth behind fore leg</td><td align="center"><tt> 8</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 4 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">From base of horns around end of nose</td><td align="center"><tt> 3</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 6 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length of tail vertebræ</td><td align="center"><tt> 1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 3 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Circumference of muzzle back of nostrils</td><td align="center"><tt> 2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 2 </tt></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_406"></SPAN></span></p>
<p><SPAN name="i_iv_8" id="i_iv_8"></SPAN>8. <i>The Cow in the third year.</i>—The young cow of course possesses the
same youthful appearance already referred to as characterizing the
“spike” bull. The hair on the shoulders has begun to take on the light
straw-color, and has by this time attained a length which causes it to
arrange itself in tufts, or locks. The body colors have grown darker,
and reached their permanent tone. Of course the hair on the head has by
no means attained its full length, and the head is not at all handsome.</p>
<p>The horns are quite small, but the curve is well defined, and they
distinctly mark the sex of the individual, even at the beginning of the
third year.</p>
<h4>BISON AMERICANUS.</h4>
<h4>(Young cow, in third year. Taken October 14, 1886. Montana.)</h4>
<h5>(<i>No. 15686, National Museum collection.</i>)</h5>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="center"> </td><td align="center">Feet.</td><td align="center">Inches.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders</td><td align="center"><tt>4</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>5 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length, head and body to insertion of tail</td><td align="center"><tt>7</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>7 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of chest</td><td align="center"><tt>2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>4 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of flank</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>4 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Girth behind fore leg</td><td align="center"><tt>5</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>4 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">From base of horns around end of nose</td><td align="center"><tt>2</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>8½</tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length of tail vertebræ</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>— </tt></td></tr>
</table></div>
<p><SPAN name="i_iv_9" id="i_iv_9"></SPAN>9. <i>The adult Cow.</i>—The upper body color of the adult cow in the
National Museum group (see Plate) is a rich, though not intense, Vandyke
brown, shading imperceptibly down the sides into black, which spreads
over the entire under parts and inside of the thighs. The hair on the
lower joints of the leg is in turn lighter, being about the same shade
as that on the loins. The fore-arm is concealed in a mass of almost
black hair, which gradually shades lighter from the elbow upward and
along the whole region of the humerus. On the shoulder itself the hair
is pale yellow or straw-color (Naples yellow + yellow ocher), which
extends down in a point toward the elbow. From the back of the head a
conspicuous baud of curly, dark-brown hair extends back like a mane
along the neck and to the top of the hump, beyond which it soon fades
out.</p>
<p>The hair on the head is everywhere a rich burnt-sienna brown, except
around the corners of the mouth, where it shades into black.</p>
<p>The horns of the cow bison are slender, but solid for about two-thirds
of their length from the tip, ringed with age near their base, and quite
black. Very often they are imperfect in shape, and out of every five
pairs at least one is generally misshapen. Usually one horn is
“crumpled,” <i>e. g.</i>, dwarfed in length and unnaturally thickened at the
base, and very often one horn is found to be merely an unsightly,
misshapen stub.</p>
<p><SPAN name="rear" id="rear"></SPAN></p>
<div class="center">
<ANTIMG src="images/008.jpg" alt="BULL BUFFALO. (REAR VIEW.)" title="BULL BUFFALO. (REAR VIEW.)" /></div>
<h4>From a photograph. Engraved by Frederick Juengling.<br/>
<span class="sc">Bull Buffalo. (Rear View.)</span><br/>Reproduced from the <i>Cosmopolitan Magazine</i>, by
permission of the publishers.</h4>
<p>The udder of the cow bison is very small, as might be expected of an
animal which must do a great deal of hard traveling, but the milk is
said to be very rich. Some authorities declare that it requires the <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_407"></SPAN></span>
milk of two domestic cows to satisfy one buffalo calf, but this, I
think, is an error. Our calf began in May to consume 6 quarts of
domestic milk daily, which by June 10 had increased to 8, and up to July
10, 9 quarts was the utmost it could drink. By that time it began to eat
grass, but the quantity of milk disposed of remained about the same.</p>
<h4>BISON AMERICANUS.</h4>
<h4>(Adult cow, eight years old. Taken November 18, 1886. Montana.)</h4>
<h5>(<i>No. 15767, National Museum collection.</i>)</h5>
<div class="center">
<table border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="adult cow">
<tr><td align="center"> </td><td align="center">Feet.</td><td align="center">Inches.</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Height at shoulders</td><td align="center"><tt>4</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>10 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length, head and body to insertion of tail</td><td align="center"><tt>8</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 6 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of chest</td><td align="center"><tt>3</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 7 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Depth of flank</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td align="center"><tt> 7 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Girth behind fore leg</td><td align="center"><tt>6</tt></td><td align="center"><tt>10 </tt></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">From base of horns around end of nose</td><td align="center"><tt>3</tt></td><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td align="left">Length of tail vertebræ</td><td align="center"><tt>1</tt></td><td> </td></tr>
</table></div>
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