THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
an easy target, the big male stood exactly in the blaze of the setting sun, 
so that I could not see him or my sights at all. With other animals it might 
have been possible to slowly withdraw without being seen, and come in 
from another angle, but not so with prong-buck. There was a snort, a blaze 
of white sterns and a dash up the hill almost as soon as I had raised the 
rifle. The buck now sprang to one side and I tried to kill him as he leapt 
along, but made a clean miss. The band rushed to the ridge, and I thought 
all was over. Fortune, however, favoured me that day. On coming to the 
ridge, the old buck turned and ran down the hill slightly, whilst the does 
moved to the left, and were evidently bent on going in another direction. 
He hesitated, broke into a trot and then stopped, and I gave him a bullet 
at 200 yards which made a loud smack. The buck then turned and ran up 
hill after the does. I thought he would never stop and that I had hit him too 
low. Suddenly his head went down, he ran round in two circles and lay 
down with his head stretched out. When I reached him he was quite dead, 
and I found I had killed a remarkable trophy, the horns measuring 
17 inches in length and 17| inches in span. 
It is a fact, sad but true, that the greater the abundance of any species, 
the more sure is its destruction, once railways and their attendant train 
of settlers and shooters invade a game range. It has been so in the case of 
the mule deer, the wapiti, the buffalo, the mountain sheep and the prong- 
horn. In Canada, Wyoming and Montana, only one antelope is allowed to 
be shot, whilst in Colorado it is, I believe, strictly preserved. Sportsmen 
who desire to add this interesting animal to their collections must now go 
to Mexico, that is to say, if the country ever becomes free from its swarm of 
cut-throats. There is good hunting still there, with a chance of bear and 
sheep as well, if the hunter goes to the right district. 
THE WHITE, OR MOUNTAIN GOAT 
The white, or mountain goat ( Oreamnus montanus) is a native of the 
higher mountain ranges of Montana, Idaho, British Columbia, the Cascade 
Mountains and so north to Alaska. It measures about 4 feet in length and 
3 feet at the shoulder. The whole of the head, neck and body is covered with 
long hanging white hair, with a short woolly under -fur, yellowish white. 
The shoulders are rather high and humped, and the short neck and head is 
carried below their level. The nose is hairy and there is a short beard on 
the chin. The horns in both sexes are somewhat slender and curve slightly 
392 
