40 POPULAR OFFICIAL GUIDE. 



Unfortunately, the Prong-Horned Antelope is not a hardy 

 animal. The kids are very difficult to rear; they are at all 

 times easily hurt by accident, and even in a state of nature 

 this species suffers more severely in winter than any other 

 North American ruminant. Often the herds drift helplessly 

 before the blizzards, with numerous deaths from freezing 

 and starvation, and in spring the survivors come out thin 

 and weak. 



THE CAMEL HOUSE, No. 39. 



Speaking in a collective sense, the Camel is much more 

 than an ordinary animal unit in a zoological park. On the 

 high plains of central and southwestern Asia, and through- 

 out the arid regions of Africa, it is an institution. Without 

 it, many portions of the Old World would be uninhabitable 

 by man. Take either Dromedary or Bactrian Camel, and it 

 is a sad-eyed, ungainly, slow-moving creature, full of plaints 

 and objections; but remember that it goes so far back to- 

 ward the foundations of man's dynasty, that beside it the 

 oldest American history seems but a record of yesterday. 

 It is only a species of the utmost tenacity which could for 

 fifty centuries or more withstand constant use and abuse 

 by man without being altered out of all resemblance to its 

 original form. All races of mankind and all breeds of 

 domestic animals save one, change and continue to change, 

 indefinitely, but the Camels go on the same, forever. 



The Bactrian Camel, (Camelus bactrianus), he of the long 

 shaggy hair it'hen not shedding and the two great humps, 

 is the beast of heavy burden, the four-footed freight-car of 

 the desert sands. He can carry 550 pounds of freight, for 

 three or four days between drinks; but a swift pace is not 

 for him. It is an animal of this remarkable species, from 

 distant Turkestan, southwestern Asia, which daily in fine 

 weather offers its services as a riding animal, at the stand 

 near the Large Bird House. 



It is unfortunate that the Bactrian Camel is in its finest 

 pelage only in winter, when visitors to the Park are few, 

 and camel-riding is out of the question. Promptly upon the 

 approach of warm weather and a million visitors, it sheds 

 its long, shaggy brown coat, and stands forth as if shorn by 

 a shearer. Of this species, the Zoological Society possesses 



