264 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



travel toward better feeding grT)unds, tliey must freeze 

 and starve if thoroughly snowbound. Why we do not 

 find more of the cast-off prongs or antlers on the 

 grounds, is a hard question to answer. Indians say 

 because sometimes the animals paw up dirt and bury 

 them, but it is probably because the great army of 

 nuisance animals gnaw them for food. 



" The Antelope fawns, one or two in number, are 

 born in middle or late S2:)ring, and stay in grassy nooks 

 under slight shelter for a few days, after which they 

 follow their mothers. This is a time of peril for both 

 fawn and doe. AVliile the fawns are too feeble to run 

 about, they are comparatively safe, but as soon as they 

 come oat in plain sight the eyes of the Coyote world 

 are upon them, and the does often lose their lives in 

 striving to protect them. Then there are winged ene- 

 mies also, — the great golden Avar Eagles, Avho swoop 

 down and seize the fawns easily, and are often a match 

 for fully grown bucks, disabling them first by picking 

 out their eyes." 



''Do Antelopes only live in the far West? Were 

 there never any near here ? " asked Dodo. 



" They have never been found east of tlie Mississippi, 

 but they once ranged all the way from the Saskatche- 

 wan country down to prickly Peccary land, both in the 

 green prairie, foothills, and dry, cracked alkali plain, 

 where rattlesnakes and horned toads were their com- 

 panions. Now domestic sheep have taken their sum- 

 mer ranges on the bare slopes of the foothills, as the 

 range cattle have replaced the Buffalo, and the great 

 tribe is broken into detached groups, scattered here 

 and there through half a dozen states." 



