Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1875 — How Buffaloes Protect Their Calves. [ARTICLE]

How Buffaloes Protect Their Calves.

There is one very marked and curious difference between buffaloes and domestic cattle. The buffalo cow seems to possess scarcely a trace of maternal instinct, and when frightened will abandon her calf without the slightest hesitation. The duty of protecting the calves is devolved entirely upon the bulls. I have seen evidences of this many times, but the most remarkable instance I have ever heard of was related to me by an army surgeon who was an eye-witness : He was one evening returning to camp after a day’s hunt when his attention was attracted by the curious action of a little knot of six or eight buffaloes. Approaching sufficiently near to see clearly he discovered that this little knot were all bulls, standing in a close circle with their heads outward, while in a concentric circle at some twelve or fifteen paces distant sat licking their chops in impatient expectancy at least a dozen large gray wolves, excepting man the most dangerous enemy of the buffalo. The doctor determined to watch the performance. After a few moments the knot broke up, ’ still keeping in a compact mass, and started on a trot for the main herd, some half a mile off. To his very great astonishment the doctor now. saw that the central and controlling-figure of this mass was a poor little calf, so newly-born as scarcely to be able to walk. Afttr going fifty or a hundred yards the calf laid down. The bulls disposed themselves in a circle as before, and the wolves, who had trotted along on each flank of their retreating supper, sat dowD and licked their chops again. This was repeated again and again, and, although the doctor did not see the finale (it being late, and the camp distant), he had no doubt that the noble fathers aid their whole duty by their offspring and carried it safely to the herd.

When the calves are young they are kept always in the center of each small herd, the cows with them, while the bulls dispose themselves on the outside. When feeding the herd is more or less scattered, but on the approach of danger it closes and rounds into a tolerably compact circular mass. Although there is not a particle of danger in approaching such a herd, it in a novice requires anextraordinary amount of nerve. When he gets within 300 yards the bulls on that side, with head erect, tail poised in air, nostrils expanded and eyes that seem to flash fire even to that distance, walk uneasily to and fro, menacing the intruder by pawmg the earth and tossings of their huge heads. The enemy still approaching, some bull will face him, lower his head, and start on a most furious charge. But, alas for brute courage! When he has gone twenty or thirty yards Mr. Bull thinks better of it, stops, stares an instant, and then trots back to the herd. Another and another will try the same game, with the same result, and if,in spite of these ferocious demonstrations, the hunter still approaches, the whole herd will incontinently take to its heels. This bullying proclivity, combined with his natural indisposition to get out of the way, has been the cause of the death of thousands at the hands of men to whom buffalo-killing was no novelty, who needed no meat, and would not have gone fifty yards out of their way to kill, but in whom opportunity so roused that spirit of murder which is inherent in every sportsman’s breast that the temptation was too strong to be resisted.— Cor. Chicago InterOcean.