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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
the young were under observation, a movement so characteristic of the frightened 
adult as to have caused this species to be known as the ‘‘antelope jack-rabbit.” 
— Chas. T. Vorhies, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. 
DATES OF SHEDDING OF HORNS IN YELLOWSTONE PARK 
During the season of 1919-1920 the dates of shedding of horns by wild antelope, 
elk, and deer in the Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, were as follows: 
Prong-horn antelope, October 20 to November 25; elk, March 19 to May 4; white- 
tailed deer, January 15 to February 20; and mule deer, January 6 to March 25. 
Horns from many weak and decrepit elk and deer fell much earlier than usual, 
and that is the reason for the early dates above. The lack of vigor of these 
animals was due, of course, to the hard winter and want of suitable food. — 
M. P. Skinner, Yellowstone ^National Park, Wyoming. 
SHED HORNS OF THE AMERICAN ANTELOPE 
The following notes were brought out by the article on the horns of the antelope 
in the May, 1920, Journal of Mammalogy from the pen of Mr. Vernon Bailey 
and were sent to him as a private letter. It has been suggested that they are of 
enough interest to be printed in the Journal. What they tell has been known 
to certain observers for many years, but has perhaps not been published. 
Thirty or forty years ago, when antelope in their range were enormously 
abundant, shed horn sheaths were often seen on the prairie. Usually, they were 
in bad condition. Many years ago, at my request, Capt. L. H. North made an 
experiment which showed that these horn sheaths offer little resistance to the 
weather and are very perishable. I think it was in December in the late ’70s — 
probably 1878 — that he killed, in western Nebraska, an antelope, from whose 
head as it fell both horn sheaths dropped off. Mr. North put the sheaths together, 
and noted the spot, and now and then through the winter in his range riding 
looked at the horns. In the early summer they began to split and crack, and in 
late August or September following, when we last looked at them, they had 
practically disappeared, and there remained only a few long black splinters of 
horn. The hard tips were recognizable when carefully looked for, but no one 
who was passing by on foot or on horseback would have noticed that there was 
anything lying on the ground. In those days, food was far more abundant on 
the prairie than of late years. Even then no doubt coyotes may have gnawed 
the antelope horns, but many of them were left untouched. 
Since in those early days the antelope was the most abundant and most uni- 
versally distributed large mammal on the plains, it was one of those most fre- 
quently killed for food. When a buck antelope was killed, late in the season, it 
often happened that if one took hold of the horn to turn the head so as to cut 
the animal’s throat, the horn sheath slipped off in the hand. The new horn below 
was always hard at the tip, but for only a short distance back from the end. It 
was covered almost to the tip with long growing hairs, somewhat as shown in 
Mr. Bailey’s figure 1, plate 8, in the Journal of Mammalogy. The hard black 
end of the sheath was very short and the hair clothed skin extended almost up 
to the end of the sheath. 
