450 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSIITUIIC: , 
its flesh is excellent eating, it is said to be easily domesticated and 
might be made of use as a draugh* animal. 
The small antelopes known as gazelles are noted for their delicate 
symmetry and graceful movements. The animal shown in plate 6 is 
from the plains of East Africa, where it is found in great numbers. 
The male has very long horns, which are ringed from the base nearly 
to the tip. 
Gazelles are remarkable for their speed, being among the swiitest 
of the antelope tribe. Consequently they are so lean and sinewy 
that their flesh is not very good eating. Their colors are excellently 
adapted to conceal them, being almost exactly the same shades as 
are seen on the dry plains or sandy deserts where they have their 
home. It is from their skins that are made the water sacks that are 
commonly used in the East for the transportation of water. 
The springbok is another most beautiful member of this group, 
cinnamon colored upon the back, snowy white below and upon the 
rump, where it has a patch of long white hair which it can spread 
when excited. It receives its name from the peculiarity of its gam- 
bols, during which it leaps suddenly upward, sometimes quite over 
the backs of its fellows in the same herd, as if engaged in a game of 
leapfrog, doing this with the utmost ease, without perceptible exer- 
tion. This animal was formerly very numerous in South Africa, and 
is still found there in considerable numbers, occasionally, when 
driven out by drought, pourmg down from the interior toward the 
settlements in Immense migratory herds, and laying waste the 
cultivated regions. 
The Indian gazelle, or black buck, is also a plains animal but con- 
fined to the continent of India. The male only is entitled to the name, 
being, when full grown, of a deep, glossy black above and a snowy 
white below, the female being cinnamon brown above and white 
below. The horns of this animal are long and peculiarly shaped, 
being not only ringed but spirally twisted, like those of the fabulous 
unicorn, which has led some to suppose that this animal may in some 
obscure way have given rise to the conception of that mythological 
beast. 
This is one of the animals that is hunted by means of the cheetah, 
or hunting leopard. Though very fleet of foot, it can not equal the 
speed of this swiftest of the cat tribe. It breeds readily in captivity 
and several young have been born in the park. 
America has but one species that can be placed among the ante- 
lopes, and that is of a very peculiar type. The old-world antelopes 
differ from the deer family in not shedding their horns annually, 
but retaining them throughout life. Our own antelope, the prong horn 
(pl. 7), agrees with the deer in shedding its horns, but conforms to the 
African and Asiatic species in general appearance and habits. It was 
