1877.] The American Antelope. 599 
water. In the vicinity of each town one or two small, brackish 
springs may exist, and these usually at the foot of the bluff, so 
that the labor of carrying water from the reservoirs, several hun- 
dred feet below, to the houses above occupies much time, while 
the liquid is highly prized and never wasted. I think this scar- 
city of water originated the custom of performing ablutions in 
water mixed with saliva and spirted from the mouth over arms 
and hands, and also that custom which prevails among the 
women, of using their saliva for mixing clay, both in plastering 
-the walls of the houses and frequently in making potter’s clay. 
The Moqui people are dwindling away year by year. In the 
last twenty years they have decreased from six thousand to fifteen 
hundred, while the Pueblo and Zuñi tribes are just as surely 
dying out. In a short time they will have entirely disappeared, 
and their deserted towns will form other groups among the ruins 
which now dot the desert of the far Southwest. 
——— 
THE AMERICAN ANTELOPE. 
BY S. W. WILLISTON. 
[HE great plains of the West have afforded to sportsmen and 
tourists few more attractive features than the American or 
prong-horned antelope (Antilocapra Americana). While their 
habitat embraces a large range of country, extending from the 
Missouri River nearly to the Pacific slope, the region that is most 
peculiarly their home is the vast untimbered prairies of Kansas, 
Colorado, and Nebraska, where they have so long been associated 
with the other mammals so characteristic of those arid plains, — 
the buffalo and prairie-dog. 
Since my early childhood their graceful forms and timid, star- 
tled movements have been to me familiar sights upon the Kansas 
Prairies, and for several summers they have been daily, almost 
hourly, objects of my admiration. 
Their peculiar habits necessarily prevent their remaining in 
settled regions. Unlike the deer family that find shelter in 
forests or rocky ravines, away from the observation of their 
enemies, the prong-horns seek the most conspicuous localities on 
the tops of hills and divides, or at the heads of ravines and the 
smaller water-courses, where their almost wonderful vigilance 
readily warns them of the approach of danger. The power of 
Sight and the extreme wariness which these animals possess fill 
