310 SPORTJXG ADVENTURES 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE ANTELOPE on PUOXCIIOKX. 



Tlio prongliorn Tts haunts, range, and abundance Character of its 

 food Its fear of woods Its position in natural history General 

 characteristics Strange growth of its horns Its glandular system 

 Is easily tamed Sterility when domesticated Its speed Coursing it 

 with greyhounds Vigilance of the animal A herd on guard Best 

 means of stalking it Croat curiosity of males Weeps when wounded 

 Twenty-four killed by one dog A day's coursing on the Laramie 

 Plains Lassoing fawns The best dogs for the chase How ex- 

 perienced hounds hunt the antelope Stalking and its result Playful 

 lawns Stags and wolves Fate of the antelope. 



THE American antelope or pronghorn (Anfilocapra americana] 

 is found all over the open plains of the West, but is never 

 seen in wooded regions, nor at any point east of the Missouri 

 River. It was formerly very abundant, and thousands covered 

 the plains as far as the eye could see, but it is fast disappear- 

 ing now before the onslaughts, and the precise, long-range 

 rifles of red and white hunters. 



This very interesting animal was first made known to the 

 scientific world bv Lewis and Clarke, who found it on the 

 Upper Missouri lliver in 18U-1-, and met it in large numbers 

 from that point westward as far as the Cascade Range. It- 

 does not cross west of that great chain in Oregon and A\ ash- 

 ington Territory, owing to the wooded character of the region, 

 but it crosses the Sierra Nevada Range, in California, and small 

 herds may now be met with in several parts of that State. 

 It is still numerous in British America and the sections south 

 of it on the Pacific slope, and is found extensively in all 

 the Territories, as their population is very small at present. 



Us favourite Imhttat is the open, undulating, and treeless 

 plains which have a light gravelly soil, and produce such succu- 

 lent vegetation as the buffalo and the bunch-grass. The cause 



