1936] 



MAMMALS OF OREGON 



71 



Distribution and habitat. Antelope originally covered practically 

 the western half of the United States from Mexico to Canada, includ- 

 ing all of the open sagebrush country of eastern Oregon, over not 

 only the valley and plains area, but the open mesas and flat-topped 

 mountain ranges, and in summer even over the broad, flat top of the 

 central part of the Cascade Range (fig. 9). A few were found in 

 the Rogue River Valley by early explorers. Records are few and 

 far back for the immediate valley of the Columbia River, but it seems 

 possible that they were kept out of this valley even in prehistoric 

 times by the numerous Indians living along the river. At the present 

 time a few shrunken herds occupy the country between Hart Moun- 

 tain and the Steens Mountains, and small bunches stray back and 

 forth over some of the surrounding valleys. 



The early expeditions into what is now Oregon made little men- 

 tion of antelope, mainly because the explorers rarely entered the 

 open plains country, where these animals were most abundant. On 

 December 5, 1825, Peter 

 Skene Ogden, on his way 

 from Fort Nez Perce 

 (now Wallowa) to The 

 Dalles and up the west 

 side of the Deschutes 

 River, mentions in his 

 journal an antelope killed 

 by an Indian about a 

 day's 'journey south of 

 the present town of The 

 Dalles, the first meat he 

 had been able to obtain 

 on the trip (1909, p. 329). 

 Again, on January 24, 

 1826, Ogden records two 

 antelope killed as his 

 party of trappers proceeded slowly up the North Fork of the 

 John Day River. In his several trapping expeditions for the few 

 following years across the Blue Mountain country to Snake River 

 and along the Malheur and Owyhee Valleys, and in the Malheur and 

 Klamath Lake section, he rarely mentions antelope. As beaver were 

 his principal quest, this may have been only from lack of interest 

 in other game. On August 28, 1834, Townsend reported one killed on 

 the upper Powder River (1839, p. 145). In his journal, September 

 27, 1841, Titian R. Peale reported 5 antelope seen 1 and 1 killed in 

 the Rogue River Valley. In 1914, Harry Telford, of Klamath Falls, 

 reported on the authority of Reams, one of the oldest settlers, whose 

 veracity he vouches for, that in the early days antelope were plenti- 

 ful in the Klamath Valley and other valleys 1 in the lower part of 

 Klamath County, where they were said to have been found up to 

 1884. 



Except in the vicinity of tribes of hunting Indians and along the 

 traveled highways, antelope seem to have held their own or increased 

 in abundance u 

 century ago an 

 much more recent times. 



FIG CHE 9. Range of Oregon antelope in Oregon : 

 Antilocapra americana oregona. Type locality 

 circled. 



ajo, aiiuciujjo o^ciii irv* iictve iiciu. i/iioir uwii ui increased. 



ip to the time of settlement of the Territory half a 

 id to have remained locally in great abundance till 



