514 



THE CLOVEN-HOOFED ANIMALS. 



The hair is long, wavy and brittle. The horns and 

 hoofs are black. Both sexes have horns, but only 

 those of the bucks are pronged; they rise vertically 

 from the head and their tips are sharply curved in- 

 ward and backward; in the old buck they are nearly 

 doubly as wide as they are thick, peculiarly rough 

 and uneven and beset at irregular intervals with 

 short, pointed excrescences. The horns of the buck 

 attain a length of from ten to twelve inches, those 

 of the female only from three to nearly five inches. 



The Pronghorn is an inhabitant of western North 

 America, ranging from the Saskatchawan river in the 

 north to the Rio Grande in the south, and from the 

 Missouri to the shores of the Pacific. It does not 

 by any means confine its domicile to the plains, as 

 has been supposed, but has been found in the wild, 

 sterile, high valleys of the Rocky Mountains up to 

 an altitude of 8,300 feet. Finsh believes it to be 

 plentiful in the wide prairies of Kansas, and down to 

 Texas, as well as in ihe prairies between the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, or in the western 

 territory between the latter and the sea. 



Daily Life The daily life of the Pronghorns, as 



of the Prong- well as the modifications which they 

 horns. undergo in the course of the year, 



have been described most minutely, and probably 

 also most correctly, by Canfield, who claims to have 

 become as familiar with them as other people are 

 with Goats and Sheep. He says: "From the first 

 of September to the first of March one always sees 

 them in larger groups composed of bucks, does and 

 yearlings. Shortly afterward the does individually 

 retire from these herds and give birth to their young. 

 After a short interval they again unite with other 

 suckling does and their little calves, possibly with a 

 view to common defense against the Wolf and Coy- 

 ote. The adult bucks roam about singly or two 

 together, leaving the mothers with their latest prog- 

 eny to their fate, the young Pronghorns in the 

 meantime gathering in groups of their own apart 

 from the older animals. Apparently tired of the 

 world and bored by society the old bucks wander 

 about for one or two months, frequenting localities 

 in which they are not ordinarily seen. Two or three 

 months subsequently the adolescent bucks again 

 join the old does and their calves, and finally the 

 old bucks also put in an appearance, so that one can 

 observe herds numbering hundreds, or sometimes 

 even thousands, after the first of September. A herd 

 never leaves its native locality or roams over more 

 than a few miles of range. In dry summer weather 

 they seek water and go to drink regularly once a day 

 or twice in three days; but if the grass is fresh and 

 green, as is the case during the greater part of the 

 year, the Pronghorns do not drink at all." 

 Food, Movements The food of the Pronghorns consists 

 and Faculties of mainly of the short succulent herb- 

 Pronghorns. a g e f the prairie, of moss and per- 

 haps of young and tender branches of trees and 

 shrubs. They are exceedingly fond of saline water 

 and pure salt, like most other Ruminants, and they 

 often take up their abode in the neighborhood of 

 saline deposits, and also rest for hours around salty 

 outcroppings, after they have licked to satisfaction. 

 With sufficient pasturage they become very fat in 

 fall, but often suffer greatly from hunger in winter, 

 when the snow covers the ground to the depth of a 

 foot or more and they are obliged to content them- 

 selves with the scantiest food. They soon decrease 

 in flesh, for running in the snow wears them away, 

 and too often they perish in a miserable way. 



All observers agree in their admiration of the 

 speed and agility of the Pronghorns. They may, 

 perhaps, in this regard be inferior to some of the Old 

 World Antelopes, but stand unequaled among the 

 animals of the prairies of the New World. Agile 

 and light, reaching far with the bold stride of their 

 long legs and, moreover, putting to shame every 

 other American mammal in point of endurance, 

 "they scour over the plain like the wind." Finsh 

 says that "a fleeing herd of Pronghorns affords an 

 incomparable and never-to-be-forgotten spectacle." 

 Skimming over the hills, the animals display the 

 same agility in going either up or down hill as on 

 the level ground and, as Audubon says, they move 

 their four legs along the ground with such celerity 

 that one can no more distinguish the limbs than he 

 can the spokes of a rapidly revolving wheel. 



The perceptive senses of the Pronghorns are acute. 

 They can see at great distance, hear excellently, and 

 scent an enemy approaching with the wind at several 

 hundred paces. They are wary and shy, to a cer- 

 tain degree intelligent and certainly cautious, and 

 judiciously select their abode, especially the spots in 

 which they are wont to rest and chew the cud about 

 noon-time, always taking care that they have an 

 unobstructed view, profiting by the wind in a most 

 ingenious way and moreover putting out special sen- 

 tinels. They carefully avoid human settlements, but 

 pay little attention to herds of domestic animals — 

 even of Horses and Cattle — and quietly graze in 

 their proximity. Several observers lay stress on the 

 fact that they do not always flee from an approach- 

 ing railway train, sometimes escorting it and ap- 

 parently testing its speed by running beside it for 

 awhile. Audubon and others assure us that they can 

 easily swim across wide rivers. 

 The Growth and The growth of young Pronghorns is 

 Horn Shedding of relatively very rapid, as is that of all 



the Pronghorn. Ruminants. The horns appear in 

 both sexes towards the end of July, first as short, 

 bluntly conical tips, which attain a length of one to 

 two inches by December; for the first year they do 

 not grow farther, but are shed and renewed. This 

 process, however, differs so completely from the 

 shedding of antlers by Deer, and is so remarkable 

 in itself, that I must describe it at greater length. 



The first to observe and describe the shedding of 

 horns was Canfield; but as his paper relating to this 

 subject and sent to Baird in September, 1858, was 

 published by the latter naturalist only in 1886, the 

 fame of having given to science the first account of 

 the strange fact belongs to Bartlett, who had the 

 care of captive Pronghorns in the London Zoological 

 Garden. The accounts of both agree perfectly and 

 have recently been substantiated by other observa- 

 tions. Bartlett says that the Pronghorn he took 

 care of had little horns which, towards the middle 

 of October, suddenly seemed to grow very rapidly, 

 not only increasing in length, but also increasing in 

 circumference. On the morning of the 7th of No- 

 vember, the keeper informed him rather excitedly 

 that the Pronghorn had lost one of its horns. In 

 consequence of this message Bartlett repaired to the 

 stable and arrived just in time to see that the second 

 horn had also been shed. A closer examination of 

 the animal revealed to his astonishment two new 

 horns in place of the old ones, the new embryo 

 members being clothed with long, straight, soft hair 

 and having their bony core enveloped with a horny 

 substance. There was no trace of bleeding, such as 

 always attends the loss by fracture of the true hollow 



