82 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



will not move if very young, but will suffer themselves to 

 be taken up, without making the least effort to get away. 

 Even then, in very short grass it is difficult to see them, 

 as they lie so quiet, and their color harmonizes so perfectly 

 with the grass. But the days of the antelope in Nebraska 

 are numbered — there are probably none now this side of 

 Wyoming. 



There have been no buffalo in Antelope county, so far 

 as is known, since the settlements began, excepting as told 

 in the history of the county. It was not many years before 

 the settlement of the county that they were very numerous. 

 I have never seen any place, either in Nebraska or Wyom- 

 ing, where the skulls, bones and horns were more plentiful 

 than they were here in 1869-70. The buffalo were very 

 gregarious animals, living in large herds and going from 

 place to place in search of pasture. Little need be said here 

 about the buffalo, because their history and habits are pretty 

 well known already. 



The mountain sheep were probably never found here 

 because the country is not at all suited to their habits. They 

 live only in a very rough mountainous country. Seventy- 

 five years ago, according to the accounts of the old hunters 

 and trappers, they were very plentiful in the Wild Cat range 

 in Scotts Bluff, Banner and Morrill counties, and probably 

 also in all the counties traversed by Pine Ridge, as that 

 country is suited to their habits. 



The elk, and the black-tail and white-tail deer will not 

 be described here, but will receive attention in the next 

 chapter. 



There were panthers or mountain lions here many years 

 ago, their range being along the Elkhorn and its timbered 

 branches, and no doubt they were also then found on the 

 Verdigris in Sherman and Verdigris townships. So far as 

 is known to me, only one has ever been seen in the county 



