402 ‘Dr. P. L. Sclater on the Systematic Position 
tant discovery regarding this animal, that had been made in the 
Zoological Society’s Gardens in the Regent’s Park during the 
past year, and had formed the subject of a paper read by Mr. 
Bartlett, the Superintendent of the Gardens, at one of the So- 
ciety’s meetings in 1865*. This discovery was, that the horns 
of the Prong horn were natur ally shed every year—a phenomenon 
hitherto quite unknown among the Bovide or hollow-horned 
Ruminants, with which the Pronghorn had always hitherto been 
associated, and only occurring in the allied Deer-family or Cer- 
vide. Mr, Bartlett’s observations had been made upon a young 
male of this scarce mammal, which had been acquired for the 
Society in January 1865+, and had since lived in good health 
in the Menagerie. This animal had shed both its horns on the 
7th of November, 1865; and a finer pair had since grown, which 
would, no doubt, be shed in like manner in Nov. 1866. Since 
Mr. Bartlett’s publication of this novel fact, full confirmation of 
it had been received by the Zoological Society, in a communica- 
tion from their Corresponding Member, Dr. Colbert A. Canfield, 
of Monterey, California, who had come to the same conclusion 
as Mr. Bartlett, from observations on this animal in a state of 
nature made in the county of Monterey, in some parts of which 
the Pronghorn was very common f. 
The author exhibited a skull of the Pronghorn with the horns 
fully developed and ready to be cast off shortly, and explained 
the mode in which he supposed the shedding to be effected. 
After the old horn was cast off, the horny matter, which was 
at first entirely confined to the upper end of the new horn, 
gradually spread itself down to its base, enveloping the nu- 
merous hairs with which the new horn was clothed when. first 
appearing, and ultimately checking their growth and destroying 
their vitality. After the horn was perfected and hardened, 
new hairs developed themselves beneath the epidermis, and, 
not being able to force their way through the horny co- 
vering, became, as the author believed, the chief agent in 
eausing the shedding of the horn. As regards the general 
structure of the horns of the Pronghorn, it was quite evident 
that they had little or nothing in common with those of the 
Deer. The latter were formed of bone developed upon a 
process of the frontal bone, and were more correctly termed 
antlers, whereas the horn of the Pronghorn consisted of true 
horn (like those of the ordinary Bovide) gradually developed 
* “Remarks upon the Affinities of the Prongbuck,” by A. D. Bartlett, 
Superintendent of the Society’s Gardens. (Proc. Zool. S06) 1865, p. 718.) 
tT See notice and figure, Proc. Zool. Soe. 1865, p. 60, pl. 3. 
~ See Dr. Canfield’s paper “On the Habits of the Prongbuck, and the 
periodical shedding of its horns,”’ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1866, p. "105. 
