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JOUKNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
OLD AND NEW HORNS OF THE PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE 
By Vernon Bailey 
[Plate 8\ 
The fact that our so-called antelope sheds and renews his horns each 
year has come at some time as a distinct surprise to every student of 
mammals — it has seemed to him almost impossible of belief and difficult 
to explain. Much time and space have been devoted to the study of 
the shedding and renewing of the hollow horn of this animal, and it is 
still safe to assume that we do not know all about the process. The 
history of our knowledge in regard to it presents an interesting chapter 
of doubt, disbelief, and discussion. 
For over thirty years I have been for part of almost every season over 
some of the antelope country and have followed the herds on their 
summer, winter, spring,- and fall ranges. I have found many skulls 
and skeletons, but never until recently have I found, or heard of any 
one finding, in the open country, a shed horn of this animal. In Yellow- 
stone National Park, on April 7, 1916, at the edge of a melting snow 
bank near Blacktail Creek, I picked up a fair sized horn of a buck ante- 
lope ohat evidently had been dropped in the soft snow of the preceding 
fall or early winter and thus was protected from coyotes until the snow 
melted away. It was wet and soft and leathery about the base and had 
the strong hartshorn (ammonia like) odor characteristic of these horns. 
It could not have remained uncovered very long without being found 
by the keen-nosed coyote, who, being in the usual hungry condition, 
would certainly have made a partial lunch on its edible base and prob- 
ably buried the rest to become more mellow with time and moisture. 
This seems the most reasonable explanation for the scarcity of shed 
antelope horns. The horn was carefully wrapped in a handkerchief, 
brought to camp, and dried until hard; it was then photographed and 
placed in the Biological Survey collection in the National Museum. 
The photograph shows imperfectly some of the long white hairs lining 
the base of the hollow horn. These hairs had pulled part way out of 
the shell as it had loosened from the bony core to make room for the 
growth of its successor, and while they show only at the edge in the 
illustration, they really cover the inner surface of the horn for a con- 
siderable distance. 
On March 9 of the same year I found a fully grown young buck 
antelope that had been killed and partly eaten by coyotes. It had 
