Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-01-18
A BULL BUFFALO.
NATURALIST HORNADAY'S PEN PIcT-
 URE OF A GIANT BISON.

NATURALIST HoRNADAYS PEN PIcT-
 URE OF A GIANT BISON.
 Majestic Presence of a Magnificent speci.
 men-The Opportunity of Lifetime-A
 Sketch from Life with Q Vengeance.
 The Last Moments.
 As the bull saw us coming he staggered to his feet, in spite of his broken leg, and gal loped off over the hill. But the moment he started, my brown horse-who had moro sense than some men I have seen-inme- diately gave chase. After a short run we again overhauled our prize, on the side of a hill, near the crest of which he was once more halted and stood at bay. Thirty yards away from him pulled up, and gazed upon him with genuine astonishment. Not until that moment had I realized what grand prize had fallen to me- He was a perfect monster in size, and just as superbly hand some as he was big In his majestic pre- sence the finest of all our other buffalo bulls were quite forgotten, and thought to my self:
 "Until this moment have never Lad an adequate conception of the great American bison."
 He seemed to me then, aye, and he does even now, the grandest quadruped I ever beheld, lions, tigers and elephants not ex- cepted. His huge bulk loomed up like a colossus, and the height of his great shaggy hump, and the steepness of its slope down to his loins, seemed positively incredible. Like Bartholdi's statue of liberty, ne was built on grand scale. His massive head was crowned by thick mass of blackish brown hoir- Twin nf sixteen inches long, piled up Oil each other,- crowding buck upon his horns, almost hiding them, and quite onto his shoulders Back of that, his hump and shoulders were covered with a luxuriant growth of coarse, straw colored hair that stood out in tufts six inches long and opened in great dark furEows up and down whenever the bull moved his head from me. The upper half of each fore leg was lost fin huge bunch of long, coarse black hair, in which scores of cockle bugIs had caught and hopelessly tangled. The body itself and the loin quarters were covered with surprisingly thick coat of long, fine mouse colored hair, without the slightest flaw or blenish. From head to heel the animal seemed to possess everything tine finest buffalo in the world should have, and although by that time no stranger to his kind sat gazing upon him so completely absorbed by wonder and admiration that had he made q sUddeI charge he might easily have bowled me over.
 It was an opportunity of lifetime, such as falls to the lot of few men whose business it is to reproduce animal forms. I stsldied his lines with absorbing interest, and took one mental photograph of hirn after another as he stood there with lowered head and angry eyes, watching me intcntly. Several times his head sank very low, and he vi ciously paved the wet snow with his xl..l anger would pass away, his eyes would lose some of their fire, and he would content him self with simply regarding mo.
 For good many minutes, l cannot say how many, sat there studying my prize, and as he did not seem seriously inclined to charge me, determined to make one or two outline sketches of him just as he stood. Accordingly slid off my faithful old com rade-horse, I should have said-got out Q field note book and pencil, and with my Winchester lying in the hollow of my left arm ready for use, proceeded to make my sketch. It was a sketch from life with a vengeance, at distance of thirty paces. got what I wanted, after a fashion, and although the result was wholly inar5is6ic it has since served me well.
 suppose I spent a quarter of an hour in studying my prize, and then I felt it was high time to end his troubles. It was cruel to keep him standing at all, but 1t was not done for my personal qualification. When the time came for the death shot, felt as a man feels when he is compelled to kill U favorite dog of noble breed. had the great beast completely in my power, and was ] obliged to be his eXecutioncr. He seeme1 l to me like the very last one of his race, that
 he knew it as well as I, and he also was l doomed. People will say this is all put on -fws-- r c- III. .c
 to commit murder. With the greatest l'eluc- | tance I ever felt about taking the life of an animal, I shot the noble beast through the ] lungs, and he fell down and died.
 ! could write out that death scene down to 1 the smallest details, if I wished; for I wrote 1 it all down in my journal the next night. But it is not pleasant reading; and 1t makes 1 my crime seem all the greater. l believe l am getting tender hearted in my old days. l It seemed to me never saw an animal die l harder and his last breath led me to exclaim ! fervently:
 l 'sThank heaven! it's over at last,"
 l He was five feet eight inches in vertical i height at the shoulder, full two inches taller l than the largest of our other bulls, and the 1 length of his head and body, ill a straight l line from the end of the nose to the rear of 1 the thigh, was nine feet two inches. His
 
 weight about 1000 pounds. Like all the
 other buffaloes we secured, he was muscular
 from excessive running, but not at all fat. 1 There was not pound of fat on him, but be 1 carried four old bullets that had been fired
 into him without effect. He was what old l buffalo hunters call . 'sstub horn," and by 1 the nine rings on each horn we know that he
 was either eleven or twelve years old. l Perhaps by this time I have drawn so heavily upon my readers stock of patience 1 that he will feel inclined to take this buffalo cum grano sails. Let me assure you, I have
 not exaggerated his size one bit. He is ad-
 mitted to be ''one of 5000" and he who
 doubts it is respectfully referred to tho old
 bull himself, as he now stands, mounted ac- 1 cording to an elaborate series of measure
 ments, in the National museum. I could
 safely challenge the world to produce his
 equal; but modesty forbids my doing so.-
 William T. Hornaday in The Cosmopolitan.
 New System of Paving.
 A newly patented pavement is said to have
 been suggested by the surface of an ele | ,xDf,