Page:The Extermination of the American Bison.djvu/51

 straw-yellow hair, in thickly-growing locks 4 inches long. But the head is irresistible in its claims to precedence.

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. 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." 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 neverceasing 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.

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.

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 watched 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