especially the “wood buffalo,” to lose a great deal of his shaggy frontlet and mane on the bushes and trees which surrounded him.  Therefore, we would naturally expect to find the hair on those parts shorter and in far less perfect condition than on the bison of the treeless prairies.  By reason of the more shaded condition of his home, and the decided mitigation of the sun’s fierceness, we should also expect to see his entire pelage of a darker tone.  That he would acquire a degree of agility and strength unknown in his relative of the plain is reasonably certain.  In the course of many centuries the change in his form might become well defined, constant, and conspicuous; but at present there is apparently not the slightest ground for considering that the “mountain buffalo” or “wood buffalo” is entitled to rank even as a variety of Bison americanus.

Colonel Dodge has recorded some very interesting information in regard to the “mountain, or wood buffalo,” which deserves to be quoted entire.[34]

[Note 34:  Plains of the Great West, p. 144-147.]

“In various portions of the Rocky Mountains, especially in the region of the parks, is found an animal which old mountaineers call the ‘bison.’  This animal bears about the same relation to a plains buffalo as a sturdy mountain pony does to an American horse.  His body is lighter, whilst his legs are shorter, but much thicker and stronger, than the plains animal, thus enabling him to perform feats of climbing and tumbling almost incredible in such a huge and apparently unwieldy beast.

“These animals are by no means plentiful, and are moreover excessively shy, inhabiting the deepest, darkest defiles, or the craggy, almost precipitous, sides of mountains inaccessible to any but the most practiced mountaineers.

“From the tops of the mountains which rim the parks the rains of ages have cut deep gorges, which plunge with brusque abruptness, but nevertheless with great regularity, hundreds or even thousands of feet to the valley below.  Down the bottom of each such gorge a clear, cold stream of purest water, fertilizing a narrow belt of a few feet of alluvial, and giving birth and growth, to a dense jungle of spruce, quaking asp, and other mountain trees.  One side of the gorge is generally a thick forest of pine, while the other side is a meadow-like park, covered with splendid grass.  Such gorges are the favorite haunt of the mountain buffalo.  Early in the morning he enjoys a bountiful breakfast of the rich nutritious grasses, quenches his thirst with the finest water, and, retiring just within the line of jungle, where, himself unseen, he can scan the open, he crouches himself in the long grass and reposes in comfort and security until appetite calls him to his dinner late in the evening.  Unlike their plains relative, there is no stupid staring at an intruder.  At the first symptom of danger they disappear like magic in the thicket, and never stop until far removed from even the apprehension of pursuit.  I have many times come upon their fresh tracks, upon the beds from which they had first sprung in alarm, but I have never even seen one.