HABIT. © 45 
ing, or accidentally comes upon one of his rivals, both parties run 
at each other with their heads lowered and their eyes flashing 
angrily, and while they strike with their horns they wheel and 
bound with prodigious activity and rapidity, giving and receiv- 
ing severe wounds, sometimes, like fencers, getting within each 
other’s ‘ points,’ and each hooking his antagonist with the re- 
curved branches of his horns, which bend considerably inward 
and downward.” 
For myself, I have never seen them in battle, nor have I seen 
any one who had seen them fight under such circumstances as 
enabled him to give me a clear idea of their mode of battle, so 
we may take the description quoted as accurate. In this connec- 
tion, and for the purpose of comparing this habit of our animal 
with the African antelope, I may refer to what Sparrman, who, 
more than a century ago studied the various species of that 
animal in his native range, says: ‘The last mentioned antelope 
(Antilope oryx), according to the accounts given me by several 
persons at the Cape, falls upon its knees when it goes to butt any 
one.” ! He ascribes the same habit to the gnu. Although this 
is the only author I find who speaks of the mode of fighting of 
the true antelope, it is quite probable that this is a generic char- 
acteristic, and if so, it shows how widely they differ in this re- 
gard from our animal. 
The rutting season occurs when the horn on the fully adult 
has about perfected its growth, and before it has been loosened 
by the new growth, and so is best adapted as a weapon. As its 
growth is not completed until July or August, and it is cast off 
in October or November, on the old specimens, and is loosened 
some time before it drops off, we see that the fighting season 
must be limited to the rutting season. Indeed, I have a mounted 
specimen which was killed in the latter part of July, from which 
I had no difficulty in removing the horn, for the purpose of ex- 
amining the core and the cavity of the horn. I confess to a lack 
of that information on the subject which will enable me to say 
how long the horn continues a perfect weapon, and as that must 
measure the time during which the males are inclined to wage 
war on each other, I cannot say how long that continues ; but, as 
the principal cause of hostility must be rivalry in love, it may be 
safe to assume that it is limited to the rutting season. 
Dr. Canfield, speaking of a domesticated American Antelope 
which he had in his grounds, says, “‘ He was the most salacious 
1 Sparrman’s Voyages, vol. ii., p. 182, also [bid., p, 222. 
