Prongbuck 239 



vals, ceaselessly scanning air and plain for signs of danger, and 

 never going far away, except, perhaps, when forced to 'seek 

 water— a necessary absence which she cuts as short as possible. 

 At all times the squeak of a kid will bring her back at reckless 

 speed, with blazing eye and bristling hair, ready to fight to the 

 death any ordinary foe, or (if it be one too strong to fight) to 

 intercept and mislead him, by every device the mother wit 

 can brmg to bear. There are not many creatures native to the 

 plams that she will not face in such a case. As Colonel 

 Roosevelt says:« *'A doe will fight most gallantly for her 

 fawn, and is an overmatch for a single Coyote, but of course 

 she can do little against a large Wolf." 



Audubon and Bachman say: " ''Sometimes, however, the 

 Wolves [Coyotes] discover and attack the young when they are 

 too feeble to escape, and the mother then displays the most 

 devoted courage in their defence. She rushes on them, butting 

 and striking with her short horns, and sometimes tosses a 

 Wolf heels over head; she also uses her forefeet, with which 

 she deals severe blows, and if the Wolves are not in strong 

 force or desperate with hunger, puts them to flight, and then 

 seeks with her young a safer pasturage, or some almost inac- 

 cessible rocky hillside." 



It seems likely that few Antelope kids are killed by their 

 natural enemies, except such as are surprised during the brief 

 absences of the devoted mother. 



This is a danger inseparable from polygamy. If the 

 Antelope had developed monogamy, the young would have 

 two adults to protect them; at least one would likely be near 

 at all times, and the superior prowess of the buck might even 

 have eliminated the chief danger of their young lives. 



Audubon, during his visit to the far West in 1843, had 

 many opportunities of observing the young after they were old 

 enough to follow the mother. This they do, he says, when 

 they are a fortnight old, and he describes with happy enthu- 

 siasm the nursing of a kid at this age: '^ 



1 J^f Family, 1903, p. m. « q n. a, 1849, Vol. II, p. 197. 



Iota., p. 199. 



