230 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



well-developed toes on each extremity, but it seems that while 

 this makes an admirable foot for wading in treacherous 

 swamps, it is, for mechanical reasons, a slow foot; the fewer 

 the toes the greater the speed. The Deer living in swamps 

 could not afford to dispense with the useful little hind or 

 mud-hoofs, and retain them still for bog use, though much 

 modified from the original equal-toed type, more nearly 

 shown in the pig. But the Antelope, living on the hard, dry 

 uplands, had no use for bog-trotters, and exchanged them for 

 a higher rate of speed, so that it now has only two toes 

 on each foot. The Horse Family went yet further. They 

 shunned the very neighbourhood of swamps; all their life was 

 spent on the firm, dry, level country; speed and sound feet 

 were their holds on existence; and these they maintained 

 at their highest pitch by adopting a foot with a single hoof- 

 clad toe. 



SPEED Coronado and his contemporaries, when they discovered 



the Antelope, were too busy adding to the spiritual Kingdom 

 of their Masters, in consideration of the material plunder 

 thereof, to bestow a second thought on this wonderful wild 

 thing. It remained for Lewis and Clark,^^ two hundred and 

 seventy years later, to give the world detailed information about 

 the Pronghorn of the Plains. 



They comment with wonder on its great strength and its 

 great weakness — that is, on its speed, which has given it first 

 place for swiftness among the four-foots of America, and its 

 inordinate curiosity, that has so often rendered its speed of no 

 avail. 



Concerning its gait, Audubon and Bachman say: ^^ "Their 

 walk is a slow and somewhat pompous gait, their trot elegant 

 and graceful, and their gallop or "run" light and inconceivably 

 swift; they pass along, up or down hills or along the level plain, 

 with the same apparent ease, while so rapidly do their legs 

 perform their graceful movements in propelling their bodies 

 over the ground that, like the spokes of a fast-turning wheel, 



" Journal. Biddle edition, 1S14, Vol. I, p. 122 et seq. '^ Quad. N. A., Vol. II, p. 198. 



