466 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



like fashion and is \-isible for a long distance (fig. 107). In habits 

 they are polygamous, one buck usually being in possession of five 

 to twelve females which he drives before him. The excess of bucks 

 is usually noticeable close by, associated as they are in bachelor 

 parties waiting for a chance to break into societ\- and displace any 

 patriarch whose fighting abihty is declining. 



The .\merican prong-homed antelope shed their horns, which 

 are hollow like those of true antelope. But these animals alone 

 among hollow-horned ruminants exhibit this characteristic of shed- 

 ding. A new horn has alread}' begun to form under the old shell 

 so that the animals are never really without horns (figs, no, in). 

 It was my good fortune to be with the Yellowstone herd daily dur- 

 ing this period when the horns were lost, and photographs were 

 taken on consecutive days to verify the field observations. The 

 shedding process started in the first week of November and within 

 a fortnight all the bucks had dropped their old horns. Several 

 pairs of shed horns were found on the range at this time. 



I first observed the Yellowstone antelope on their summer range 

 in the Lamar valley in mid-September. The young are bom in 

 June; and those which I saw in September were half the weight of 

 the parents, nearly as tall, and much more alert and fleet of foot. 

 At that date the animals appeared to be in harems and this condition 

 was maintained until October 10. when they gathered in larger 

 bunches and migrated down the valley close to the town of Gardiner, 

 where they formed a large herd within the four-mile fence extend- 

 ing across the Gardiner valley at the Park boundary-. Here, on a 

 range but a few hundred acres in extent, most of them spend the 

 winter (figs. 104, 105). The winter of 1921— 1922 was severe and 

 about 125 of the animals died of exposure or were killed by beasts 

 of prey which trapped them in the crusted snow along the boundary- 

 fence. 



For a more detailed account of this remarkable species, based on 

 this study in the Park in 192 1, the reader is referred to The Vanish- 

 ing Race of Pronghorns, b}' Edmund and Hilda Hempl Heller 

 {Travel, Vol. 41, No. 2, June, 1923. pp. 5-10). For the most com- 

 plete account of the Yellowstone antelope, see The Prong-horn, by 

 ^I. P. Skinner (Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 3, No. 2, May, 1922, 

 pp. 82-105). and a revised reprint of this, 1924. 



As the Yellowstone region comprises our last great wild life 

 refuge, outside of Alaska, the loss of such vanishing species as the 

 antelope and grizzly bear, or the last small herd of truly wild buffalo. 



