Buffalo

an animal of the ox kind, native to Africa and southern Asia. It has no hump on its shoulder. The name has been applied unfortunately to the American bison, for an account of which the reader is referred to an article under that name. There are three distinct species of true buffaloes. A chestnut colored species ranges throughout central and western Africa. A bluish black, nearly hairless species, known as the cape buffalo, ranges from South Africa to Abyssinia. Its enormous horns are joined at the base. They lop down and backward towards the ears, but curve forward and inward over the forehead again, making a complete shield of defense for the head. This animal is attended regularly by the buffalo bird, which lives on parasites picked from the thick hide of the buffalo, for which it renders compensation by sounding the alarm if an enemy, that is to say, a lion or a man, is seen in the vicinity. If the buffalo should be asleep and not heed the cry of its little sentinel, the faithful bird, it is said, thrusts its bill down and picks its host's ear, and thus awakens it, when they dash off together to a place of safety.

The third species is the black buffalo of India. It has long, triangular horns, which curve backward toward its shoulders. These horns are much flattened, and are surrounded with wrinkles, much like those of an ox. In its native home in the jungles it is considered a dangerous animal, as it has an ugly habit of charging upon hunters with the utmost recklessness. It has been widely domesticated, however. It is used by the peasants of Egypt and India much as domestic cattle are used with us.

The buffalo is the principal beast of burden in the Philippines, also. It is used to plow, to draw carts, and for a great variety of similar purposes. The buffalo is able to work in swampy ground, where horses and ordinary oxen cannot travel. If allowed to bathe occasionally in mud and water, it is able to endure an unusual degree of heat. It lives on the coarsest forage. The buffalo cow yields milk. Both the cow and the ox are valuable for food and for their hides. The Asiatic buffalo is as indispensable to the peasant farmers in swampy grounds, where horses and ordinary oxen cannot travel. If allowed to bathe occasionally in mud and water, it is able to endure an unusual degree of heat. It lives on the coarsest forage. The buffalo cow yields milk. Both the cow and the ox are valuable for food and for their hides. The Asiatic buffalo is as indispensable to the peasant farmers in swampy lands of tropical countries as the reindeer, the yak, and the camel are to other localities.

Travelers in the Philippines say that the the buffalo is to the Filipino peasant what the mule is to the southern darkey. The buffalo drags the peasant's wooden plow through the mire of the rice swamps, lives on the roughest forage, yields milk for the family, is fondled by the children, and is a patient domestic companion. White people are regarded with distrust. The white man who comes around a turn in the road, and is discovered by buffaloes wallowing with their calves in a pond or stream, must be on the lookout lest he be charged at full speed by the alarmed animals.