1865.] MR. A.D. BARTLETT ON THE AMERICAN PRONGBUCK. 719 
sheds its horns; and the evidence I am now able to produce and lay 
before you is positive and unmistakeable, although this has been 
denied repeatedly by many authorities. I call your attention to the 
following words of Messrs. Audubon and Bachman in their second 
volume of the ‘Quadrupeds of North America,’ p- 198. 
“It was supposed by the hunters at Fort Union that the Prong- 
horned Antelope dropped its horns ; but as no person had ever shot 
or killed one without these ornamental and useful appendages, we 
managed to prove the contrary to the men at the Fort by knocking 
off the bony part of the horn and showing the hard spongy mem- 
brane beneath, well attached to the skull, and perfectly immoveable.”’ 
Another well-known and eminent writer and naturalist, the late 
Sir John Richardson, in his ‘ Fauna Boreali- Americana,’ says of the 
Prongbuck, at page 268. 
«The females are stated by some American writers to have horns 
like the males, although smaller; but in one gravid and therefore 
at least nearly full-grown individual which I have examined, there 
was merely a short obtuse process of the frontal bone, scarcely to be 
felt through the fur and not covered with horn.” 
This was probably the first horn, which is doubtless covered with 
hair in its early stage of growth. 
But in his recently-published work upon the Mammals of North 
America, contained in the Pacific-Railways Reports, Prof. Baird 
says (p. 667) :— 
“The female sometimes has no horns externally ; frequently, how- 
ever, there is a short horny tubercle of a few lines, occasionally two 
inches long ; it does not show any curve, however, although usually 
warty at the base. When horns appear wanting in the female, the 
may sometimes be found concealed among the hair of the head.” 
Many who are now present will remember that in the month of 
January last a living male Prongbuck was purchased by this Society, 
and placed in the Gardens. The animal, at that time, was thin, 
and in poor condition, probably owing to the voyage it had so re- 
cently made from North America. Its horns were about three inches 
long, and exhibited no signs of the prong. This, however, could be 
felt among the hair at the base of the then growing horn. The 
animal made but little progress or improvement in condition till 
about the month of April. At this time it much improved, and the 
horns showed signs of rapid growth, apparently becoming complete 
with the prongs at midsummer. This condition continued until 
about the middle of October, at which time the horns appeared to 
have again commenced growing: not only were they increased in 
length, but they spread wider apart at the points. 
On the morning of November 7th, the keeper, somewhat alarmed, 
called my attention to the fact that one of the horns of the Prong- 
buck had fallen off (fig. 1, p. 720). I hurried to the spot imme- 
diately, fearing that some accident had happened, and reached the 
paddock in time to see the second horn fall to the ground. My 
astonishment was much increased at observing that two fine new 
horns were already in the place of those just dropped, that these 
