NORTH AMERICAN RUMINANTS 
ANTLERED RUMINANTS. 
The Pronghorns, or Pronghorn Antelopes, or American An- 
telopes, as they frequently are called, formerly had a range which 
extended from the Saskatchewan region southward 
over the plains, parks and portions of the Great Basin 
region to the tablelands of Mexico, their eastern limit being 
the eastern border of the Great Plains. Over this vast area they 
formerly ranged in large herds, numbering hundreds and often 
thousands of individuals, but they have now disappeared entirely 
from a large portion of this great region, being found in their 
former abundance only within comparatively limited districts. 
Two forms of Pronghorn are now recognized by naturalists—a 
northern and a southern, the latter at present confined to a small 
area in Mexico. The Pronghorn, though often called the ‘‘ Amer- 
ican Antelope,” is not a true Antelope, as once supposed, but is a 
distinct family type, found-only in North America. It is one of 
the most beautiful, graceful and agile of American game animals, 
gentle, and possessed of great curiosity, advantage of which is 
often taken to secure its destruction. | Unless strenuously pro- 
tected, it will soon whol y disappear from our western mountain 
valleys and plains. 
The Pronghorn is represented in the Museum by a pair of 
mounted specimens and a mounted skeleton, and in the study 
collection by a small series of skins and skulls. Owing to the 
peculiar interest of this very distinct type, it should be elaborately 
presented to the public as a group, with the proper setting to 
illustrate its natural haunts. 
The Deer tribe consists of five groups, commonly recognized 
as genera, namely: the Elk, genus Cervus; the small Deer of the 
United States and Mexico, genus Odocotleus (recently North 
known, successively, as Cariacus and Dorcelaphus); American 
several smaller kinds of Deer or Brocket, with un- oie 
branched antlers, of the genus Mazama, found in southern 
Mexico and Central America; the Moose, genus Alces, with 
broad palmate antlers, and the Caribou, genus Rangzifer, of 
which five or six very distinct forms are known. 
7 
Pronghorn. 
