50 HOOFED ANIMALS 



found in no other animal, that zoologists have created for it 

 a separate Family, which it occupies in solitary state. It 

 is like an island in a vast sea, unrelated. Let him who here- 

 after may be tempted, either lawfully or unlawfully, to raise 

 a death-dealing rifle against one of these beautiful prairie 

 rovers, remember two things before he pulls the trigger: In 

 this land of plenty, no man really needs this creature's paltry 

 pounds of flesh; and if his two-cent bullet flies true to the 

 mark, it will destroy an animal more wonderful than the 

 rarest orchid that ever bloomed. 



Remember the ages which Nature has spent in fashioning 

 this wonderful combination of keen eye, fleet foot and grace- 

 ful limb, and in preserving it from the extermination which 

 overtook the great reptiles, rhinoceroses and toothed birds 

 of the vast inland sea now known as the Uintah Basin. Surely 

 this animal is worth perpetual protection at our hands, rather 

 than needless, cruel and inexcusable slaughter. It cannot be 

 'perpetuated by breeding in captivity; and unless preserved in 

 a wild state, it will become extinct. 



Behold the list of characters in which this animal differs 

 from all other antelopes: Although its horns grow over a 

 bony core, they are shed and renewed every year; the horn 

 bears a prong, and is placed directly over the eye; the feet 

 have no "dew-claws"; the hair consists of a hollow tube filled 

 with pith, — coarse, harsh, straw-like and easily broken; and 

 all the hair on the rump is fully erectile, like the bristles of 

 swine. When fighting, or alarmed, this white hair is instantly 

 thrown up, and on a fleeing animal it forms a dangerously 

 conspicuous and inviting mark. To my mind, the white 



