Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/134

110 keeping to his particular knoll of herbage—when it is in plenty—without molesting his neighbour. When grass grows scarce however fierce looks are often exchanged, eyes glare, horns are lowered, tails are elevated, bellowings rend the air, stubborn hides are pierced, and blood flows upon the ground. These bisons are of smaller size than those which roam the prairies of more northerly America: they have somewhat lean bodies short horns squat faces long tails and a prodigious quantity of hair upon their shoulders.

Their most formidable enemies after the hunters, are the wolves so common in Mexico. These fierce but cowardly beasts are of medium size, and of a peculiar reddish shade of colour, they frequently follow herds of cattle in immense gang's, for days together, running to the right and left, and howling,—only awaiting an opportunity to rush upon them in an unguarded moment. It is an impressive spectacle in the prairies, especially in the silence of night, after listening to the confused tramp of many feet in the distance, interspersed with bellowing roars and savage jells, to behold the dark forms of a herd of cattle advancing at slow