244 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



horns, they wheel and bound with prodigious activity and 

 rapidity, giving and receiving severe wounds." 



In the Washington Zoo I repeatedly saw their manner of 

 fighting, and was made to realize how exactly each detail of the 

 apparently harmless horn had a purpose, offensive or defensive, 

 for which it was highly specialized. Two bucks were having 

 one of their periodical struggles for the mastery. They ap- 

 proached each other with noses to the ground, and after fencing 

 for an opening, closed with a clash. As they thrust and par- 

 ried, the purpose of the prong was clear. It served the Ante- 

 lope exactly as the guard on the bowie-knife or the sword serves 

 a man; for countless thrusts that would have slipped up the 

 horn and reached the head, were caught with admirable adroit- 

 ness in this fork. 



And the in-turned harmless looking points .? I had to 

 watch long before I saw how dangerous they might be when 

 skilfully used. After several minutes of fencing, one of the 

 bucks got under his rival's guard, and making a sudden lunge, 

 which the other failed to catch in the fork, he brought his in- 

 turned left point to bear on the unprotected throat of his 

 opponent, who saved himself from injury by rearing quickly 

 and throwing himself backward. Such a move, however, it 

 seemed to me, could scarcely have foiled a dangerous thrust if 

 the two animals had been fighting a deadly duel. 



I find, further, that in their fights the wild Antelope are 

 usually struck in this way. W. R. McFadden tells me that 

 he has seen two bucks badly ripped by a rival's horn, one in the 

 throat, the other in the side of the neck close to the throat. 



I recall a scene, the sequel of an Antelope duel on the Big- 

 horn Basin many years ago, in which evidently the defeated 

 buck took the most serious possible view of the situation. It 

 was in the October of 1898. I was riding across the Bighorn 

 Basin (Wyoming) with Mrs. Seton and A. A. Anderson, when 

 we noticed near the horizon some bright white specks. They 

 were moving about, appearing and disappearing. Then two of 

 them seemed to dart erratically over the plain, keeping always 



