A better idea of the appearance of the subject of these remarks may be obtained by a glance at the illustrations than could possibly be given by any amount of descriptive writing, the illustrations having been drawn by Mr. Whymper from photographs of the pure-bred beasts in Colonel Bedson’s herd, taken by Lady Alice Stanley, and by a photographer at Winnipeg, Manitoba.
An idea of the size of a buffalo bull may be conveyed by the fact that, in 1889, one of the bulls in Colonel Bedson’s herd was estimated at 2,000 lbs., and a much smaller beast, a half-bred bull, was killed, which dressed without the head 1,100 lbs. This was a four-year-old, by a buffalo bull out of a Durham cow.
P.S.—Since writing the above, I have spent a season with an old-time buffalo hunter, who confirmed all the statements made to me by others; and added that, as an instance of the numbers killed by individuals, he himself accounted for 3,500 head in four years, whilst a friend of his, A. C. Myers, killed 4,200 buffaloes in the Pan Handle Country, in Texas, in one year, ‘about the time Hayes was President.’
My old friend S. W. explained to me why men used such a gigantic weapon as the ‘old reliable’ Sharp, which used to weigh 16 lbs. and upwards, although the bullet was but a small one.
‘A pile of buffalo bones’
In buffalo shooting, he said, you had often to fire a deuce of a lot of shots one after another; the weather was hotter than ‘the hottest part of the hot place,’ and as you were shooting at long ranges, if the barrel got hot, a sort of mist would get between your eye and the sights, which helped the buffalo somewhat. Besides, where shooting was your trade, you didn’t want to get your shoulder ‘kicked’ at every shot; and as for the weight of your rifle, that didn’t matter to you, for your pony packed it.
V. THE BIGHORN (Ovis montana)
A group of bighorn