From a photograph, supplied by the Superijitendent. 
Young Antelope in Ni 
Coyote menace any of the young. Each 
one seems now to act for the good of the 
entire herd. A mid-September incident of 
Antelope hunting in Jackson's Hole recurs 
to me. I had crawled through brush and 
sage for half a mile after a mixed band of 
forty. I was within 300 yards and, in cover 
of a certain clump of sage, expected to get 
within 100 yards before selecting my speci- 
men, when a loud ''kau," afar to my right 
called my attention to the fact that I was in 
plain view of a young sentinel buck whose 
head showed above the sage 200 yards to 
my left. In an instant every crupper-disc 
was flashing; the band lined up. The next 
moment I knew they would be going. I 
turned my sights on the nearest; it was the 
sentinel, and now he is among the specimens 
on view at the National Museum. 
This ideal family gathering is broken up 
at length, not by any outside enemy, but by 
the annual mating — I cannot call it pair- 
ing — season. Toward the end of Septem- 
ber the kids of the year are weaned, and 
about the same time the procreative in- 
stinct is aroused in the bucks. At first the 
feeling is one merely of feverish unrest with- 
out definite purpose; sudden impulses drive 
them to expend their energies in aimless ex- 
ercise. 
Later the females manifest signs of re- 
sponse, and the battles that ensue show all 
the savagery and greed that is characteris- 
48 
ional Zoological Park. 
tic of the extremely polygamous creature 
that the Antelope is. Canfield says of his 
domesticated Antelope, ''He w^as the most 
salacious animal I have ever seen." (Ca- 
ton, p. 45.) 
In the Washington Zoo I repeatedly saw 
their manner of fighting, and was made to 
realize how exactly each detail of the ap- 
parently harmless horn had a purpose, of- 
fensive or defensive, for which it was highly 
specialized. 
Two bucks were having one of their peri- 
odical struggles for the mastery. They ap- 
proached with noses to the ground, and 
after fencing for an opening, closed with 
a clash. As they thrust and parried, the 
purpose of the prong was clear. It served 
the Antelope exactly as does the guard on 
the bowie-knife or a sword, for countless 
thrusts that would have slipped up the horn 
and reached the head were caught with ad- 
mirable adroitness in this fork. 
And the inturned harmless looking points ! 
I had to watch long before I saw how dan- 
gerous they might be when the right mo- 
ment arrived. After several minutes of 
fencing one of the bucks got under his rival's 
guard, and making a sudden lunge, which 
the other failed to catch in the fork, he 
brought his inturned left point to bear on 
the unprotected throat of his opponent, who 
saved himself from injury by rearing quick- 
ly and throwing himself backward, though 
