DICRANOCERA. 59 



Suborder II. DICRANOCERA. 



Front of upper jaw callous, toothless. Horu-like promi- 

 nences over the orbit on the frontal bone permanent, covered 

 with a hairy skin and a deciduous subhorny sheath formed 

 of matted hair. False hoofs none. 



In the ' Proceediogs of the Zoological Society ' for 1855, I men- 

 tioned that the honi of the Prongbuck was " formed of agglutinated 

 hair, that it was lined internally with a close velvet-like coat of 

 short hairs, which were directed towards the top of the cavity, and 

 that the edge of the base of the horn was furnished with a ring of 

 hair." I observed that the " pecidiarity in the internal structure of 

 the horns of the genus showed, like the branched external form, a 

 similarity to the horns of the Deer, the haiiy horns being the ana- 

 logue of the deciduous velvet of the Deer and the permanent hairy 

 coat [on the horns] of the Giraffe." 



The pecuharity in the structure of the horn, which isolates the 

 Cabrit or Prongbuck from the other hollow-horned Euminants seems 

 to have been overlooked by the American naturalists ; and the spods 

 of the animal are very rare in European museums. 



The hunters of America stated that the Prongbuck shed its horns ; 

 but the systematic zoologists, who depended on the examination of 

 the preserved skin and head for their facts, did not believe the 

 assertion ; and, indeed, some went so far as to deny the fact. 



When the hunters at Fort Union said that the prong-horned 

 Antelope di'opped its horns, Messrs. Audubon and Bachman (Quad. 

 North America, p. 198) considered it a sufficient reply to show them 

 that " the bony part of the horn and the hard spongy membrane 

 beneath were well attached to the skull and perfectly immovable." 

 They evidently had the deciduous horn of the Deer in their mind, 

 and could not conceive any other manner of shedding the horns, not 

 foreseeing that the homy sheath might drop oif the cores, which, if 

 they had examined the structure of the horn and observed its internal 

 fur, they might have anticipated as probable. 



Cassin, in the ' United- States Exploring Expedition' (p. 63), 

 under Antilocapra americana, remarks, " Dr. Pickering, in his note 

 under 24th August 1841, observes. Dr. Marsh assures me that the 

 horns of this animal are shed annually, like those of the Deer." 



Dr. Colbert A. Canfield, who resides in California, sent an account of 

 the habits of the Prongbuck (in which he states as a fact that " the 

 horns drop off annually '') to Dr. Spencer Baird, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution ; but his paper (which is dated Sept. 10, 1858) was not 

 pubhshed until after Mr. Bartlett had recorded his observation of 

 the same fact, observed on the animal in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens. 



Dr. Colbert Canfield's paper is printed in the ' Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society,' 1866, p. 105, and contains many very in- 

 teresting particidars on the habits and manners of the animal. 



Dr. Canfield tridy observes that tlie horns of Sheep and Goats 



