The naked portion of the nose is light Vandyke-brown, with a pinkish tinge, and the edge of the eyelid the same. The iris is dark brown. The horn at three months is about 1 inch in length, and is a mere little black stub. In the male, the hump is clearly defined, but by no means so high in proportion as in the adult animal. The hump of the calf from which this description is drawn is of about the same relative angle and height as that of an adult cow buffalo. The specimen itself is well represented in the accompanying plate. The measurements of this specimen in the flesh were as follows: +---------------------------------------------------------+ | BISON AMERICANUS. (Male; four months old.) | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | (_No. 15503, National Museum collection._) | +---------------------------------------------------------+ | |Feet.|Inches.| |Height at shoulders | 2 | 8 | |Length, head and body to insertion of tail | 3 | 101/2 | |Depth of chest | 1 | 4 | |Depth of flank | | 10 | |Girth behind fore leg | 3 | 1/2 | |From base of horns around end of nose | 1 | 71/2 | |Length of tail vertebræ | | 7 | +---------------------------------------------------------+ The calves begin to shed their coat of red hair about the beginning of August. The first signs of the change, however, appear about a month earlier than that, in the darkening of the mane under the throat, and also on the top of the neck.[26] [Note 26: Our captive had, in some way, bruised the skin on his forehead, and in June all the hair came off the top of his head, leaving it quite bald. We kept the skin well greased with porpoise oil, and by the middle of July a fine coat of black hair had grown out all over the surface that had previously been bare.] By the 1st of August the red hair on the body begins to fall off in small patches, and the growth of fine, new, dark hair seems to actually crowd off the old. As is the case with the adult animals, the shortest hair is the first to be shed, but the change of coat takes place in about half the time that it occupies in the older animals. By the 1st of October the transformation is complete, and not even a patch of the old red hair remains upon the new suit of brown. This is far from being the case with the old bulls and cows, for even up to the last week in October we found them with an occasional patch of the old hair still clinging to the new, on the back or shoulders.