36 
The Prong- Horned Antelope 
In anatomy this animal stands alone in 
the world; so much so that a separate family 
has been founded for it among the Rumi- 
nants. It is the sole member and constitu- 
ent species of the family of Antilocapridie. 
Diagram of buck Antelope's horns in his four successive 
Autumns, 
The black part is the new horn coming inside. 
It has the size, shape, and mammae of a 
Deer; 
The glands of a Goat; 
The feet of a Giraffe; 
The horns and gall-bladder of an An- 
telope. 
It differs, however, from all of them in 
this : Its horns, though true horns like those 
of a Cow or Goat, are yet branched in shape 
and shed each year like the antlers of a 
Deer. 
This last fact was first established by Dr. 
C. A. Canfield, of Monterey, Cal., in 1858. 
Judge Caton investigated the growth of 
the horns in detail. His observations show 
that the male Antelope has at birth a little 
bump over each eye. At four months old — 
that is, the end of September — this breaks 
through the skin as a small and somewhat 
movable horn. In January usually, or 
when about an inch long, it is dropped or 
pushed off by the new horn growing below 
it, on the top of the bony core, which also 
grows rapidly, so that in a couple of months 
the whole horn is about three inches high. 
The next year the shedding takes place 
earlier, but the bony core, now much bigger, 
of course, remains. The prong is devel- 
oped above the bony core. Old bucks shed 
in October — that is, immediately after the 
rut. They have the advantage over the 
Deer tribe in one particular — the Deer are 
hornless for some time after shedding the 
antler., but the Antelope's new horn is al- 
ready well sprouted before the old one is 
shed. The accompanying outlines [page 36] 
may be considered as diagrammatic expres- 
sion of the horn development. Actual ma- 
terial like that shown for the Wapiti is not 
at hand. 
It seems that the larger and lustier the in- 
dividual the sooner his weapons are shed. 
Mr. W. R. McFadden, of Denver, relates as 
follows: 
"Early in the fall of 1894, while shooting 
on the Elkhead River of Colorado, I fired at 
a buck Antelope, that had unusually large, 
fine horns. He ran some twenty yards and 
fell dead. On coming up I was disappointed 
to find his horns were a pair of miserable 
little spikes. But the change was explained 
when I found both of his other horns, a 
large pair, lying on the ground where he fell; 
evidently he was at the point of shedding." 
The female yearling shows little points of 
horn, and they never exceed two or three 
inches in length. 
The normal type of horns is seen in the 
first figure in the illustration [page 41] and 
the number of variations from this is very 
small. The largest pair that I can find on 
record is in the possession of Mr. E. S. 
Dodge, who shot them October 22, 1897. 
These are given in Recreation for October, 
1898. (Not seen by me.) 
Inches. 
Length of left horn around curve 1 7 
Length of right horn around curve 
S pread of horns at ti p 6 H 
Spread at widest part 15 
Girth of left horn at base 6]/^ 
Girth of right horn at base 6 
Girth of horn at largest place 10]^ 
E. S Dodge, Arcadia Ranch, 
Oracle, Arizona. 
These are of exceptional size, and as Mr. 
Hornaday remarks, "any measuring 12 
inches may fairly be considered large."* 
The only freak type that is often seen is 
the "droopers," as shown in the cut on page 
3 7 . These disfigurements are probably the 
result of accident in early life. But obvi- 
ously the buck with droopers once, will al- 
ways have them, as it is the fundamentals, 
the horn cores, that have departed from the 
true lines of their kind. 
Near the centre of the group in Mr. Wal- 
lihan's photograph [page 45] is seen a wild 
buck with drooping horns. 
A singular specimen in the collection of 
Mr. Louis M. Thompson, of Red Bank, 
N. J., has but one horn, the only unicorn 
buck that I know of. 
Long ago Darwin confessed himself puz- 
zled by the form of the Antelope's horn, the 
incurve of the points apparently rendering 
*"Am. Nat. Hist p. 117. 
