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.

"I have wasted much time and a great deal of wind in vain endeavors to
add one of these animals to my bag. My figure is no longer adapted to
mountain climbing, and the possession of a bison's head of my own
killing is one of my blighted hopes.

"Several of my friends have been more fortunate, but I know of no
sportsman who has bagged more than one.[35]

[Note 35: Foot-note by William Blackmore: "The author is in error here,
as in a point of the Tarryall range of mountains, between Pike's Peak
and the South Park, in the autumn of 1871, two mountain buffaloes were
killed in one afternoon. The skin of the finer was presented to Dr.
Frank Buckland."]

"Old mountaineers and trappers have given me wonderful accounts of the
number of these animals in all the mountain region 'many years ago;' and
I have been informed by them, that their present rarity is due to the
great snow-storm of 1844-'45, of which I have already spoken as