18 ACROSS MONGOLIAN PLAINS 



tation to shoot at impossible ranges and to keep on shoot- 

 ing when the game is beyond anything except a lucky 

 chance. Therefore, if any of you go to Mongolia to 

 hunt antelope take plenty of ammunition, and when you 

 return you will never tell how many cartridges you used. 

 Our antelope were tied on the running board of the car 

 and we went back to the road where Lucander was wait- 

 ing. Half the herd had crossed in front of him, but he 

 had failed to bring down an animal. 



When the excitement was over I began to understand 

 the significance of what we had seen. It was slowly 

 borne in upon me that our car had been going, by the 

 speedometer, at forty miles an hour and that the ante- 

 lope were actually beating us. It was an amazing dis- 

 covery, for I had never dreamed that any living animal 

 could run so fast. It was a discovery, too, which would 

 have important results, for Professor Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural - 

 History, even then was carrying on investigations as to 

 the relation of speed to limb structure in various groups 

 of animals. I determined, with Mr. Coltman's help, to 

 get some real facts in the case data upon which we 

 could rely. 



There was an opportunity only to begin the study on 

 the first trip, but we carried it further the following 

 year. Time after time, as we tore madly after antelope, 

 singly or in herds, I kept my eyes upon the speedometer, 

 and I feel confident that our observations can be relied 

 upon. We demonstrated beyond a doubt that the Mon- 

 golian antelope can reach a speed of from fifty-five to 



