1877.] On the Laws of Digital Reduction. 603 
together upon some eminence, when the males gathered about 
watch sharply the movements of their enemy; when closely 
pressed they take refuge in flight. 
There has been much dispute as to whether the male antelope 
habitually sheds his horns. The weight of evidence is strongly 
in favor of it; but I should hesitate before positively affirming it 
myself. At all events the new horns must attain their strength 
and size very soon after the disappearance of the former ones. A 
female is occasionally shot having a remarkable development of 
rudimentary horns; in one instance, a doe with kids had horns 
that measured four inches, with the prongs proportionately devel- 
oped. Their horns are, however, soft and pliable, with the rudi- 
mentary horn-core but little if any developed. 
In conclusion, I would call the attention of naturalists to the 
importance of securing legal protection for this, one of the most 
interesting of all American mammals, that it may not share the 
fate that is fast overtaking the buffalo. The antelope can never 
exist in even a moderately inhabited country. The vast unpro- 
ductive region of Western Kansas and Eastern Colorado will be 
its home so long as this region remains comparatively unsettled, - 
provided suitable legislation can be effected in its favor. 
ON THE LAWS OF DIGITAL ‘REDUCTION. 
BY JOHN A. RYDER. 
T a recent meeting of the Philadelphia Academy I called at- 
~~ tention to several facts bearing upon an explanation of dig- 
ital reduction. It was suggested that the fact of the number of 
toes being least wherever mechanical strains were greatest and 
Impacts most frequent and most severe might be regarded as an 
effect of such increased intensity of strains. To make this con- 
clusion appear valid it was only necessary to refer to the foot- 
Structure of the different orders of the class of mammals. © 
t may be observed that among the primates the only creature 
ving any one toe greatly augmented in size and strength is 
man; here it is the great one, or the first of anatomists. Its 
Whole structure, especially the articulation with the carpus, calls 
„to mind the condition of things found to exist in the groups 
Which have undergone the most modification in the structure of 
the feet, namely, the ungulates or hoofed animals, kangaroos, and 
Jumping mice. The calibre of its distal elements is greatly in- 
