A great change now took place in the appearance of the country. The timber became still more scarce, and the soil drier and more sandy. Species of cactus (opuntia) appeared along the route, with several other plants new to the eyes of most of us, and which to those of Besançon were objects of extreme interest. But that which most gratified us was the appearance of a new herbage, different entirely from what we had been passing over, and this was hailed by our guides with exclamations of joy. It was the celebrated “buffalo grass.” The trappers declared we should not have much farther to go until we found the buffaloes themselves, for, wherever this grass existed in plenty, the buffalo, unless driven off by hunting, were sure to be found.
The buffalo grass is a short grass, not more than a few inches in height, with crooked and pointed culms, often throwing out suckers that root again, and produce other leaves and culms, and in this way form a tolerably thick sward. When in flower or seed, it is headed by numerous spikes of half an inch in length, and on these the spikelets are regular and two rowed.
It is a species of Sesleria (Sesleria dactyloides), but Besançon informed us that it possesses characters that cause it to differ from the genus, and to resemble the Chondrosium.
The buffalo grass is not to be confounded with, another celebrated grass of the Texan and North Mexican prairies, the “gramma” of the Spaniards. This last is a true Chondrosium, and there are several species of it. The Chondrosium foeneum is one of the finest fodders in the world for the food of cattle, almost equal to unthrashed oats.
The buffalo grass forms the favourite and principal fodder of the buffaloes whenever it is in season, and these animals roam over the prairies in search of it.
Of course with this knowledge we were now on the qui vive. At every new rise that we made over the swells of the prairie our eyes were busy, and swept the surface on every side of us, and in the course of a few days we encountered several false alarms.
There is an hallucination peculiar to the clear atmosphere of these regions. Objects are not only magnified, but frequently distorted in their outlines, and it is only an old hunter that knows a buffalo when he sees one. Brothers a bush is often taken for a wild bull, and with us a brace of carrion crows, seated upon the crest of a ridge, were actually thought to be buffaloes, until they suddenly took wing and rose into the air, thus dispelling the illusion!
Long before this time we had encountered that well-known animal of the great plains—the “prairie-wolf,”—(Lupus latrans).
The prairie-wolf inhabits the vast and still unpeopled territories that lie between the Mississippi River and the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Its range extends beyond what is strictly termed “the prairies.” It is found in the wooded and mountainous ravines of California and the Rocky Mountain districts. It is common throughout the whole of Mexico, where it is known as the “coyote.” I have seen numbers of this species on the battle-field, tearing at corpses, as far south as the valley of Mexico itself. Its name of prairie-wolf is, therefore, in some respects inappropriate, the more so as the larger wolves are also inhabitants of the prairie. No doubt this name was given it, because the animal was first observed in the prairie country west of the Mississippi by the early explorers of that region. In the wooded countries east of the great river, the common large wolf only is known.
Whatever doubt there may be of the many varieties of the large wolf being distinct species, there can be none with regard to the Lupus latrans. It differs from all the others in size, and in many of its habits. Perhaps it more nearly resembles the jackal than any other animal. It is the New World representative of that celebrated creature.