176 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
for its nutrition, nor any of the blooming plants. 
She was eating, and plainly with relish, simply 
the gray-green bitter leaves of the shrubby 
scattered sage. On reaching the low summit of 
the prairie swell she paused for a little while on 
the skyline, then started on a run for a water- 
hole about two miles distant. , 
A few seconds later a fox-like head peeped 
over a little ridge a few hundred feet from the 
kids. Then a distant bunch of sagebrush 
transformed itself into another moving form, 
and two coyotes trotted into the scene. Evi- 
dently these coyotes knew that somewhere 
near two youngsters were hidden. They fol- 
lowed the mother’s trail by scent and kept their 
eyes open, looking for the youngsters. 
Old antelope have perhaps more numerous 
scent glands than other big wild animals, but 
evidently a young antelope gives off little or no 
scent. Its youthful colour blends so well with its 
surroundings when it lies down that it is diff- 
cult to see it. Once the young flatten out and 
freeze upon the grassy earth they offer but little 
that is revealingeventothe keenest eyes and noses. 
Both coyotes paused within a few feet of one 
of the kids without either seeing or scenting it. 
It was flattened out between two clumps of sage- 
brush. Finally, unable to find the youngsters, the 
coyotes trotted off along the mother’s trail. 
