the hair, and the only part visible is the straight, terminal spike.
Usually the spike points diverge from each other, but often they are
parallel, and also perpendicular. In the fourth year, however, the
points of the horns begin to curve inward toward each other, describing
equal arcs of the same circle, as if they were going to meet over the
top of the head.

In the handsome young "spike" bull in the Museum group, the hair on the
shoulders has begun to take on the length, the light color, and tufted
appearance of the adult, beginning at the highest point of the hump and
gradually spreading. Immediately back of this light patch the hair is
long, but dark and woolly in appearance. The leg tufts have doubled in
length, and reveal the character of the growth that may be finally
expected. The beard has greatly lengthened, as also has the hair upon
the bridge of the nose, the forehead, ears, jaws, and all other portions
of the head except the cheeks.

The "spike" period of a buffalo is a most interesting one. Like a
seventeen-year-old boy, the young bull shows his youth in so many ways
it is always conspicuous, and his countenance is so suggestive of a
half-bearded youth it fixes the interest to a marked degree. He is
active, alert, and suspicious, and when he makes up his mind to run the
hunter may as well give up the chase.

By a strange fatality, our spike bull appears to be the only one in any
museum, or even in preserved existence, as far as can be ascertained.
Out of the twenty-five buffaloes killed and preserved by the Smithsonian
expedition, ten of which were adult bulls, this specimen was the only
male between the yearling and the adult ages. An effort to procure
another entire specimen of this age from Texas yielded only two spike