Page:The Extermination of the American Bison.djvu/83

 buffalo used to be very fond of this grass, and that "wherever this grass grew in abundance there were the best hunting-grounds for the bison." It appears that Aristida purpurea is not sufficiently abundant elsewhere in the Northwest to make it an important food for stock; but Dr. Vesey declares that it is abundant on the plains of Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas."

Kœleria cristata. — Very generally distributed from Texas and New Mexico to the British Possessions; sand hills and arid soils; mountains, up to 8,000 feet.

Poa tenuifolia (blue-grass of the plains and mountains). — A valuable "bunch-grass," widely distributed throughout the great pasture region; grows in all sorts of soils and situations; common in the Yellowstone Park.

Festuca scabrella (bunch-grass). — One of the most valuable grasses of Montana and the North west generally; often called the "great bunchgrass." It furnishes excellent food for horses and cattle, and is so tall it is cat in large quantities for hay. This is the prevailing species on the foot-hills and mountains generally, up to an altitude of 7,000 feet, where it is succeeded by Festuca ovina.

Andropogon provincialis (blue-stem). — An important species, extend. ing from eastern Kansas and Nebraska to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and from Northern Texas to the Saskatchewan; common in Montana on alkali flats and bottom lands generally. This and the preceding species were of great value to the buffalo in winter, when the shorter grasses were covered with snow.

Andropogon scoparius (bunch-grass; broom sedge; wood-grass). — Similar to the preceding in distribution and value, but not nearly so tall.

None of the buffalo-grasses are found in the mountains. In the mountain regions which have been visited by the buffalo and in the Yellowstone Park, where to-day the only herd remaining in a state of nature is to be found (though not by the man with a gun), the following are the grasses which form all but a small proportion of the ruminant food: Kæleria cristata; Poa tenuifolia (Western blue-grass); Stipa viridula (feather-grass); Stipa comata; Agropyrum divergens; Agropyrum caninum.

When pressed by hunger, the buffalo used to browse on certain species of sage-brush, particularly Atriplex canescens of the Southwest. But be was discriminating in the matter of diet, and as far as can be ascer. tained he was never known to eat the famous and much-dreaded "loco" weed (Astragalus molissimus), which to ruminant animals is a veritable drug of madness. Domestic cattle and horses often eat this plant where it is abundant, and become demented in consequence.

(1) Reasoning from cause to effect. — The buffalo of the past was an animal of a rather low order of intelligence, and his dullness of