WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
“ It was supposed by the hunters at Fort Union that 
the prong-horned antelope dropped its horns, but as no 
person had ever shot or killed one without these orna- 
mental and useful appendages, we managed to prove the 
contrary to the men at the Fort by knocking off the bony 
part of the horn and showing the hard spony membrane 
beneath, well attached to the skull, and perfectly immov- 
able." 
It therefore continued to be unknown or disbelieved 
until Nov. 7, 1865. On the morning of that day I 
witnessed the shedding of the horns of this very singular 
animal, and at a meeting of the Zoological Society, Nov. 
28, 1865, 1 read a paper that was published in the Proceed- 
ings of the Society, calling attention to the fact. 
Three months afterwards a letter, stated to have been 
written seven or eight years ago by Dr. Canfield (but which 
had been laid aside and unnoticed), was forwarded to the 
Society and published in the Proceedings, 1866. In this 
letter it was made to appear, and most thoroughly 
established the fact, that the prong-horn shed its horns 
annually; yet, notwithstanding, some American writers 
doubt the accuracy of the conclusion at which the best 
authorities have arrived. During the last autumn the 
prong-horned antelope now living in the Society’s Gardens 
shed and renewed his horns exactly in the same manner as 
stated and described in the paper alluded to, as read at 
the Zoological Society’s meeting in 1865. 
There remains yet another group of animals that deserve 
a passing notice, because they are horned mammals, but 
not belonging to the bovine or cervine classes, and they 
are not ruminants. The group alluded to are the rhino- 
ceroses. They are horned, but the nature and structure of 
the horns differ so entirely from the horned animals before 
described that it appears necessary to give a few words of 
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