ANTELOPE. 195 



the point of the horn, though already turning black, was 

 so soft that it might be bent backwards and forwards 

 between the fingers ; and at the proper season and in 

 favourable localities I have found the dropped horns in 

 greater profusion than I ever saw those of elk or deer. 

 Although I hear it frequently disputed, there is no fact 

 connected with the habits or characteristics of any game 

 animal more certainly within my personal knowledge 

 than that the antelope sheds his horns. 



The coat of the antelope can only be called 4 hair ' by 

 courtesy. Each fibre is less like hair than like the 

 separate delicate plumes which go to make up each 

 feather of a large bird. This hair is very thick, 

 brittle, nearly two inches long, and of a reddish colour, 

 inclining to yellow on the sides and white on the belly. 

 Around the root of the tail and extending well up and 

 down on the buttocks, the hair is perfectly white, and 

 longer than elsewhere. Under ordinary circumstances 

 this is scarcely noticeable ; but, when the animal is 

 frightened or otherwise excited, he possesses the faculty 

 of erecting this white hair, spreading it out like a fan, 

 and, as it were, intensifying its whiteness. 



This peculiarity, with the ease and lightness of his 

 movements, and his graceful carriage, make him a most 

 beautiful animal, attractive alike to the lover of nature 

 and to the lover of sport. He loves the treeless plains, 

 and is rarely found in wooded or mountainous countries, 

 although the cedar wooded slopes through which the 

 black-tailed deer so loves to roam, seems to possess equal 

 fascination for the antelope. The two animals seem to 

 get along together much better than the two deer. In 

 the Eule Creek canons I have frequently seen black-tails 

 and antelope browsing in close vicinity ; and during my 

 hunts in that, my favourite hunting ground, I usually 

 bagged about an equal number of the two animals, and 

 not unfrequently two or three of each in the same day's 

 hunt. Even in these canons, however, there is but a 



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