44 The Ottawa Naturalist. [June 



"Towards autumn the periosteum becomes thicker, and 

 takes on the character of skin, and from this skin grows the 

 fine hair, which, as stated, finally pushes the sheath of the old 

 horn away from its supporting bone, and at the extremity of 

 the skin becomes new hard horn. After the sheath has been 

 shed, the hair continues to grow, and as it grows it becomes 

 matted together below the tip, dark and hard, and gradually 

 working down toward the head, changes from a covering of single 

 hairs, which are white in color, to a mass of black agglutinated 

 fibres, precisely like the sheath which the animal carried the 

 year before. This process gradually extends further and further 

 down the horn, until at the base it is sometimes difficult to be 

 certain just where the sheath ends and the skin of the head begins. 



"During September and during the first half of October, 

 antelope use their horns to some extent in fighting, and often 

 come together with considerable force and energv, and push 

 head to head for a long time. It is not probable, however, that 

 such battles are ever severe enough to loosen the horns, or that 

 they have anything to do with the annual loss of the sheath, 

 which has been described." 



It is an interesting fact that the female prong-horn 

 possesses these ornaments, but they are smaller, rarely more 

 than 3 or 4 inches long, if hunters are to be trusted. Packard 

 gives an interesting figure, after Hays, of a young prong-horn 

 with a pair of sharp conical horns, not pronged, but covered 

 with hair like the rest of the head. Its method of feeding is 

 unlike that of the deer for it crops grass but never nibbles ^: 

 leaves or shrubs. It is nomadic and so far as I could learn has 

 no special local haunts. 



Formerly large bands numbering thousands roamed over 

 the prairie, but it is now scarce, indeed in some of the western 

 states it is quite exterminated, so that where fifteen years 

 ago in a county, in Colorado, fifty thousand of these beau- 

 tiful creatures were known to exist, to-day there are not 

 fifty. They never frequent wooded or sheltered districts, but 

 constantly roam over the open plains where they are exposed 

 to the hunter's rapacity. East of the Rockies, in Canada, small 

 bands may be found, but excepting in California where a few 

 have occasionally been noticed, the prong-horn is absent from 

 the coast country west of the mountains. Only in severe storms 

 do they forsake the open country, and seek shelter on the slopes 

 of coulees, and they have been known to migrate hundreds of 

 miles in winter to find slopes where the snow was light and feed 

 obtainable. They cannot subsist on the rich eastern grasses, or 

 live confined in sheltered reserves, and in captivity very little 

 grass must be given if the captives are to be kept in health. 



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