CHAPTER IV. 



THE ANTELOPE-GOAT OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE 

 MOUNTAINS. 



WHEN first bitten with the desire to slay what was then considered 

 North America's rarest game I met with many unexpected dis- 

 appointments, for at the time very little authentic information 

 regarding its appearance and habits, as well as of its home, was 

 obtainable in Europe or in the States, the sole place where more 

 definite knowledge could be got being British Columbia, which was 

 at that time a very little known part of the world. Naturalists had, 

 it is true, written about it, but in almost every case their informa- 

 tion was of the vaguest kind. The naturalist Ord wrote a learned 

 treatise on this animal, but as his knowledge of it was based on 

 " the scalp with one horn attached to it, and the skin without head 

 or legs," not very much useful information was to be gleaned from 

 it. Ord acknowledged that this remnant had once served an Indian 

 as a cloak, and it was for years the sole material upon which also 

 a number of other writers, who copied from him, based their 

 accounts. Fathers Piccolo and de Savatiera are said to have first 

 discovered the animal on the Pacific Slope, while Vancouver 

 brought home, more than a century ago, the mutilated skin to 

 which we have referred. In the latest edition of the " Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica " the animal is still spoken of as the Rocky 

 Mountain Sheep or Goat. In fact, I think I can rightly claim 

 that a series of articles that I published in the Field not more than 

 seventeen years ago were the first accounts based upon personal 



