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Dozens of wild fellows were curvetting and racing around him. It was his first hunt. Mad with excitement, he finally swept away from his comrades with a series of war-whoops that would have done credit to the fiercest redskin on the North American plains. The huge bison, or buffalo, of the North American prairie is gregarious; in other words, it loves society and travels in herds.
Man was present when rhinoceros and elephant were as common in Britain as they are to-day in Southern India or Borneo; when the hippopotamus was as much at home in the waters of the Thames as in the Nile and Niger; when huge bears like the grizzly of the Rockies, cave-lions and sabre-toothed tigers lurked in Devon caverns or chased the bison over the hills of Kent.
"He is hit!" exclaimed the princess; "he will not escape." But suddenly, with such a dreadful bellowing that the frightened horses reared, the bison rushed directly toward the lady; at the same moment with no less impetus, Sir de Lorche rushed from beneath the trees and leaning on his horse, with his spear extended as in a knightly tournament, attacked the animal.
It would now be a matter of extreme interest to ascertain whether the few dwindled herds of bison in North America are infected by trypanosomes, and no doubt we shall soon receive reports on the subject. A most interesting branch of this subject of the unthinking extermination of great animals by man is that of the extermination of whales. Man is worrying them out of existence.
In the meantime, the hunters at the temporary camp were aroused to a high pitch of excitement. Some turned their buffalo robes and put them on in such a way as to convert themselves into make-believe bison, and began to tread the snow, while others were singing the buffalo song, that their spirits might be charmed and allured within the circle of the camp-fires.
He would be driven to the wild plains hunted like the wolf or the savage bison perhaps taken and slain! Bitter were her reflections. When should she see him again? Maybe, never! During all this time Vizcarra lay groaning upon his couch not so much with pain as fear, for the fear of death still haunted him.
In the dentirostres, for instance, we have in a subdued form the hooked bill and predaceous character of the raptores; to this tribe belongs the family of the shrikes, so deadly to all the lesser field birds. In the genus bos, we have, in the sub-typical group, the bison, "wild, revengeful, and shewing an innate detestation of man."
The wind blew in her face as she rode, and owing to this circumstance, the bison being a quick scented animal, she was enabled to approach a solitary bull feeding by a stream at the foot of the hill and dispatched it by a shot from her rifle.
Its source of supply is chiefly from the horned cattle, the buffalo and the bison, the horns of these beasts in their natural state frequently being mounted on shields just as in later years the horns of smaller animals, such as the South African varieties of the ibex, springbok, and similar horned sheep and cattle, are brought over to this country and mounted as ornaments.
The history of this animal, and more especially of the warm friendship that sprung up between it and a doe sambur deer, is extremely interesting. I took down the following from my neighbour Mr. Park, and read over to him the account I now give. It appears then that Mr. Park when out shooting some years ago, caught a male calf bison which was supposed to be about three days old.
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