312 The Antelope. 



related. The yearling bucks are possessed of this same spirit of 

 investigation, but are wholly without the wisdom of their seniors, 

 and thus often fall an easy prey to the hunter, frequently walking up 

 to within shooting distance, and standing there stamping and snort- 

 ing, until a rifle-ball satisfies their curiosity. 



Antelope are often hunted with greyhounds, and this is a most 

 noble sport. To practice it successfully, dogs of unusual power 

 and endurance are required, as well as horses of great speed, for the 

 pleasure of the chase is lost unless the hunter keeps the game in 

 view. When I have seen them used, the Scotch staghounds have 

 not proved fleet enough to overtake the antelope, and the most 

 successful dogs have been large, smooth greyhounds. 



Within the past ten years, the antelope have been exterminated 

 in many localities where they were once abundant. The West is 

 now filling up more rapidly than ever before, and with the advance 

 of the settlements comes, in one district after another, the extinction 

 of the antelope. Already along the line of the Union Pacific Rail- 

 road they have been driven from the Missouri River to the borders 

 of Wyoming Territory; and, as the farmer breaks up the prairie, 

 the stockman scatters his cattle, and the shepherd leads his flocks 

 into regions hitherto unoccupied, the antelope must retreat before 

 their advance, and seek for himself some feeding-ground where 

 man has not yet penetrated. Such a feeding-ground he will seek in 

 vain. The shrill whistle of the locomotive, quivering over the wide 

 prairie or waking the echoes of the once silent mountain valleys, 

 has sounded the death-knell of large game in the West. 



