1909] The Ottawa Naturalist. 43 



which is usually four feet high and about five feet in length and 

 averages 100 to 175 pounds in weight. The general ground- 

 colour is almost white with a kind of saddle or saddlecloth patch 

 on the back and the side of the body, of a light yellowish brown; 

 the neck is brown with two bands or collars of white across the 

 throat, there is a dark patch on each cheek, the nose is dark 

 and the chin and sides of the mouth pale ochre. The tail is 

 almost black, and a large patch of white surrounds the tail 

 region. The white hairs forming this large rounded patch are 

 said to be erectile, and in extreme fear or anger they rise and 

 give a very peculiar appearance to the prong-horn. This com- 

 plex arrangement of white, yellow, and dark brown wotild be 

 grotesque were it not for the grace and delicacy of the form and 

 action of the wearer of these colours. 



The sharp goat -like muzzle, the high precipitous forehead, 

 the bright piercing grey eyes near the summit of the brow and 

 close below the root of the horns, the slender erect neck, per- 

 pendicular short ears and the deer-like bod}^ make a peculiar 

 combination. The creature is a goat with its trim delicate legs, 

 not an antelope; its hair is coarse, tubular and fragile just as is 

 the hair of a deer. But it has no tear-canal near each eye with 

 the double lachrymal apertures of the deer, and the posterior 

 accessory hoof or "deer claw" is absent. There is a mane, not 

 unlike that of the moose, consisting of firm, erect red hairs pro- 

 jecting four or five inches from the back of the neck. But the 

 most striking feature is the pair of horns standing upright on the 

 summit of the brow, 10 or 12 inches high and of a black or dark 

 brown colour, thicker at the base and for a third of the total 

 length, at which point the prong or sharp knob projects forward, 

 while the sharp upper part curves backward like a hook. The 

 short anterior fork on each horn imparts a peculiar jaunty 

 aspect to the head, and justifies the name "prong-horn." But 

 still more remarkable is the fact that this hollow horn is de- 

 ciduous or shed annually. All the deer tribe have solid antlers, 

 which are shed each season, but in the oxen, antelopes, goats, 

 sheep, etc., the horns which are of the nature of a sheath cover- 

 ing a projecting bony core of the frontal bone, are not shed but 

 permanent through life. Alone amongst cavicorn or hollow- 

 horned ruminants, the prong-horn sheds these ornaments which 

 are possessed bv both sexes. The hollow horn becomes loose 

 in mid-winter after the "battles of the fall," and in January 

 or earlier they drop off. The frontal process or core, if examined 

 after the old horn has dropped, is found to show fine white pro- 

 jecting hairs developed in a soft epidermal layer. At the tip 

 these hairs are black and dense and they coalesce to form the new 

 horn. A writer in Forest and Stream (New York) stated that : 



