lis FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



THE AMERICAN ANTELOPE, OR THE PRONG-HORN. 



ANTII.OPE AMERICANA. 



Antelope; Lewis and Clarice, i. 75, 208, 369 ; ii. 169. Antilope 

 Americana; Ord. Guthrie's Geography, Philad. edition, 1815. 

 Antilocapra Americana; Ibid. Journal de Physique, 1818, 

 Say ; Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, i. 363, 485. 

 Antilope Furcifer ; Smith, Trans, of Linriaan Soc. xiii. pi. 2. 

 Vrong-horned Antelope ; Sah. App. p. 667. 



" Our adventurous countrymen, who led the first expedition 

 across the Rocky Mountains, were the first to call attention to 

 this beautiful animal, and the first to call it by its true name. 



" Notwithstanding the obviousness of all the other characters, 

 the circumstance of its having an offset or prong to its horns, 

 kept nomenclators for years undecided as to what place it should 

 occupy in their arrangements, and gave them an opportunity, 

 by which they have not failed to profit, of multiplying words and 

 republishing their own names, if they made no addition to our 

 information on the subject. All that has been related concern- 

 ing this animal, which is worth repeating or remembering, was 

 published in Lewis and Clarke's narrative above quoted, and has 

 since been confirmed by the observation of Dr. Richardson, 

 appended to Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea. Leaving 

 to the nomenclators their disputations about what DeKay has 

 happily called ' the barren honors of synonyme,' we shall glean 

 the few facts contained in the narrations of the above-mentioned 

 accurate observers of nature. 



" The Prong-horn Antelope is an animal of wonderful fleet- 

 ness, and so shy and timorous as seldom to repose, except on 

 ridges which command a view of the surrounding country. 

 The acuteness of their sight ano' the exquisite delicacy of their 

 smell, renders it exceedingly diflicult to approach them ; and 

 when once the danger is perceived, the celerity with which the 



