240 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



*'We had the gratification of seeing an old female, in a 

 flock of eight or ten Antelope, suckling its young. The little 

 beauty performed this operation precisely in the manner of our 

 common lambs, almost kneeling down, bending its head up- 

 ward, its rump elevated, it thumped the bag of its mother from 

 time to time, and reminded us of far distant scenes where peace- 

 ful flocks feed and repose under the safeguard of our race/' 



The kids, though strong enough to follow the mother, are 

 yet ready, at her signal, to hide when danger threatens, and the 

 marvellous way in which they "play dead" is most inspiring. 



On June 13, 1897, I rode to the top of Junction Butte, in 

 Yellowstone Park. As my head rose above the level I caught 

 sight of a female Antelope walking along, followed by a smaller 

 animal, that turned out to be her kid. Very soon the mother 

 saw me and communicated her alarm to the young one, which 

 dropped at once to the ground. Just how she ordered him to 

 hide I cannot tell. I am satisfied that he did not see the 

 danger. She may have grunted, but I am inclined to think 

 that the danger signal was a flash of her crupper-disks. As 

 soon as he had dropped she ran off^ to one side, uttering the 

 loud, grunting bleat of the species. Evidently she was trying 

 to decoy me away, but I rode straight to where the young one 

 had dropped, and found him crouching flat on the bare ground, 

 and yet so well-concealed by his protective colour and his 

 stillness, that had I not marked him down, I never should have 

 found him. I rode around him and spent some twenty minutes 

 making the sketch, which, finished afterward, appears here- 

 with. During this time he gave no sign of life. Even a fly 

 crawling over his eye and nose did not make him forget that 

 his duty was to "lay low" at whatever cost (Plate XVII). 



This young one I took to be two weeks old. His 

 colours were quite unlike those of the adult, being soft, un- 

 spotted shades of gray and brown that matched him with the 

 ground, helping him to hide; they constituted, indeed, a 

 protective colouration, in contrast to the directive livery of the 

 old one — a livery which he does not assume until he is able to 

 save himself by running. 



