48 THE ANTELOPE OF AMERICA. 



round the inclosure, is relieved by one of his companions. In 

 this way tlie hunters take their turns, relieving eacli other, and 

 keeping up a continued pursuit by relays without fatigue to them- 

 selves. The poor antelopes, in the end, are so worried down 

 that the whole party of men enter and despatch them with clubs, 

 not one escaping which has entered the inclosure. The most 

 curious circumstance in this chase is, that an animal so fleet and 

 agile as the antelope, and straining for its life, should range 

 round and round this fated inclosure without attempting to over- 

 leap the low barrier which surrounds it. Such, however, is said 

 to be the fact, and such their only mode of hunting the ante- 

 lope." 



When I received a tliree-year old buck, lately captured on the 

 plains, and sent me, I feared he would scale the eight feet paling 

 fence which incloses the parks, for I had seen the female wliich I 

 had had before make most astonishing horizontal leaps across 

 ravines in the park, without an apparent effort, which she might 

 just as well have walked across. 



Although I had observed this buck, whilst confined in the yard, 

 when frightened by a person going in, dash against the palings 

 not three feet from the ground, in his efiPorts to break through 

 the fence, without attempting to leap over it, yet it never oc- 

 curred to me that he could not make higli vertical leaps, till I 

 met the statement above quoted. Subsequent observation of the 

 conduct of these animals in my grounds convinced me that this 

 statement might well be true, and that the Prong Buck may be 

 restrained by a fence which would be sufficient to confine our 

 domestic sheep. 



In speaking of Mr. Cipperly's antelopes, Mr. Crooker says, 

 " A four foot fence was ample to confine them." 



This inability to leap over high objects may no doubt be at- 

 tributable to the fact that they live upon the plains, where they 

 rarely meet with such obstructions, and so they and their ances- 

 tors for untold generations have had no occasion to overleap high 

 obstructions, and thus from disuse they do not know how to do 

 so, and never attempt it when they do meet them. 



If the antelope on the plains desires to cross the railroad 

 track, when alarmed by the cars, as is sometimes the case, he 

 will strain every muscle to outrun the train and cross ahead of 

 it, as if he suspected a purpose to cut liim off from crossing ; and 

 thus many an exciting race has been witnessed between muscle 

 and steam. The same disposition is manifested by the bison, or 



