NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 



55 



1 



BACTRIAN CAMEL. 



To-day, all observers agree that in all regions Avherein the 

 antelope are not rigidly protected, they are going fast. 

 Those in the Yellowstone Park are protected against man 

 only to be devoured by the wolves which infest the Park. 



Unfortunately, the Prong-Horned Antelope is not a hardy 

 animal. The kids are very difficult to rear; they are at all 

 times easily hurt by accident, and even in a state of nature 

 this species suffers more severely in winter than any other 

 North American ruminant. Often the herds drift helplessly 

 before the blizzards, with numerous deaths from freezing 

 and starvation, and in spring the survivors come out thin 

 and weak. 



THE CAMEL HOUSE, No. 39. 



Speaking in a collective sense, the Camel is much more 

 than an ordinary animal unit in a zoological park. On the 

 high plains of central and southwestern Asia, and through- 

 out the arid regions of Africa, it is an institution. Without 

 it, many portions of the Old World would be uninhabitable 

 by man. Take either Dromedary or Bactrian Camel, and it 

 is a sad-eyed, ungainly, slow-moving creature, full of plaints 

 and objections ; but remember that it goes so far back to- 

 ward the foundations of man's dynasty, that beside it the 

 oldest American history seems but a record of yesterday. 



