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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



other lovers of wild life should interest them- 

 selves in an effort to safeguard the future of 

 Alaskan game animals before it is too late; 

 for, under the severe climatic conditions pre- 

 vailing, the restocking of exhausted game fields 

 in that region will be extremely difficult, if not 

 practically mipossibie. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT (Oreamnos 

 monianus and its subspecies) 



The numerous wild goats of the Himalayas 

 and other mountains of Asia are represented 

 in America solely by the Rocky Mountain goat. 

 This is one of the most characteristic, but least 

 graceful in form and action, of our big-game 

 animals. It is distinguished by a long ungainly 

 head, ornamented with small black horns ; a 

 heavy body, humped at the shoulders like a 

 buffalo, and a coat of long shaggy white hair. 



The range of these habitants of the cliffs ex- 

 tends from the head of Cook Inlet, Alaska, 

 easterly and southerly through the mountains 

 to Montana and Washington. Unlike moun- 

 tain sheep, the goats do not appear to dislike 

 the fogs and saline winds from the sea, and 

 at various points along the coast of British 

 Columbia and Alaska they range down pre- 

 cipitous slopes nearly to the shore. 



They are much more closely confined to 

 rugged slopes and rocky ledges than the moun- 

 tain sheep, which in winter commonly descend 

 through the foothills to the border of the 

 plains. Through summer and winter, goats 

 find sufficient food in the scanty vegetation 

 growing among the rocks, and their heavy coats 

 of hair protect them from the fiercest winter 

 storms. 



Owing to their small horns and unpalatable 

 flesh they are less sought after by hunters 

 than mountain sheep, and thus continue to ex- 

 ist in many accessible places where otherwise 

 they would long since have become extermi- 

 nated. They are frequently visible on the high 

 ledges of a mountain across the bay from the 

 city of Vancouver and are not difficult to find 

 in many other coastal localities. 



Although marvelously surefooted and fear- 

 less in traversing the faces of high precipitous 

 slopes, goats lack the springy grace and vivac- 

 ity of mountain sheep and move with compara- 

 tive deliberation. They are reputed to show at 

 times a stupid obstinacy when encountered on 

 a narrow ledge, even to the point of disputing 

 the right of way with the hunter. 



Their presence lends interest to many other- 

 wise grim and forbidding ranges where, amid 

 a wilderness of glacier-carved escarpments, 

 thev endure the winter gales which for days at 

 a time roar about their cliffs and send snow 

 banners streaming from the jagged summits 

 overhead. 



Owing to tlie character of their haunts, 

 mountain goats have few natural enemies. 

 The golden and bald eagles now and then take 

 toll among their kids, but the lynx and moun- 

 tain lion, their four-footed foes, are not known 

 to prey upon them to any considerable extent. 



Through overhunting they have vanished from 

 some of their former haunts, but still hold 

 their own in many places, and with effective 

 protection will long continue to occupy their 

 peculiar place in our fauna. 



PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE (Antilocapra 

 americana and its geographic races) 



Unique among the antelope of the world, 

 among which it has no near relatives, the 

 prong-horn, because of its beauty of colora- 

 tion, its grace, and fleetness, claims the atten- 

 tion of sportsmen and nature lovers alike. It 

 is a smaller and slenderer animal than the 

 larger forms of the Virginia deer. Its hair is 

 coarse and brittle, and the spongy skin lacks 

 the tough fiber needed to make good buckskin. 

 Both sexes have horns, those of the doe being 

 smaller and slenderer. One of the extraordi- 

 nary peculiarities of this antelope is its habit 

 of shedding the horns every fall and the de- 

 veloping new horns over the remaining bony 

 core. 



The rump patch of the prong-horn is formed 

 of long pure white hairs, which in moments of 

 excitement or alarm are raised on end to form 

 two great chrysanthemum-like white rosettes 

 that produce an astonishingly conspicuous di- 

 rective color mark. The power to raise these 

 hairs is exercised by the fawns when only a 

 few days old. Even when the hairs are not 

 erected the rump patch is conspicuous as a 

 flashing white signal to a distance of from 

 one to two miles as the antelope gallops away. 

 When the animal whose rump signal has been 

 plainly visible at a distance suddenly halts and 

 faces about to look back, as is a common cus- 

 tom, its general color blends with that of the 

 background and it vanishes from sight as by 

 magic. 



Early explorers discovered antelope in great 

 abundance over a vast territory extending from 

 near the present location of Edmonton, Al- 

 berta, south to near the Valley of Mexico, and 

 from central Towa west to the Pacific coast in 

 California. They were specially numerous on 

 the limitless plains of the "Great American 

 Desert," where our pioneers found them in 

 great bands, containing thousands, among the 

 vast herds of buffalo. So abundant were they 

 that it has been estimated that on the Great 

 Plains they equaled the buffalo in numbers. 

 Now reduced to a pitiful remnant of their for- 

 mer numbers, they exist only in widely scat- 

 tered areas, where they are constantly decreas- 

 ing. Fortunately they are strictly protected by 

 law in most of their remaining territory. 



The great herds containing thousands of 

 antelope were usually formed late in fall and 

 remained together throughout the winter, sep- 

 arating into numerous smaller parties during 

 the summer. For years following the comple- 

 tion of the transcontinental railroads they were 

 commonlv seen from the car windows as trains 

 crossed the Great Plains. At such times their 

 bright colors and graceful evolutions, as they 

 swept here and there in erratic flight or 



