THE ANTELOPE 249 



of October. The bucks at this season may often be 

 seen fighting, but they do not often injure each other 

 much in the light, the weaker taking to liis heels when 

 he is vanquished. 



It is with feelings of regret and sorrow that I think 

 of the great plains, as I have observed them more 

 recently, almost everywhere deserted so far as wild- 

 animal life is concerned. The range of the antelope, 

 which, as we have seen, was a few years ago estimated 

 not by hundreds but by thousands of miles, is to-day 

 restricted to comparatively small areas, where the ani- 

 mals are not nearly so plentiful as they were when I 

 first visited them. They would have been truly 

 exterminated had it not been for the passage of laws 

 protecting them at all times in some States and limit- 

 ing the shooting to short seasons and small bags of 

 male animals only in others. 



The antelopes are only to be seen to-day in parts of 

 the following States : Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, 

 Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, 

 California and Oregon.* 



In some places the antelopes have taken to the hills, 

 and, Roosevelt says, even resort to the timber in their 

 endeavor to escape. It is to be hoped that they will 

 be saved from extermination in the Yellowstone Park 

 and other national and private preserves in the West, 

 where the ground is more suited to them than that of 

 the Yellowstone Park. 



* The antelope is protected at all times in Montana, Utah and California. 

 In Texas, New Mexico and Colorado it is protected for a period of years. 



