BAILEY — THE PEONG-HORNED ANTELOPE 
129 
half grown young horns standing about 7 inches up from the crown, 
with hard horny tips extending back about 3 inches from the points, 
and soft skin covered with long coarse hairs over the rest of the horns. 
These long black and white and gray hairs were firm and wiry like the 
hairs of a cow — not soft and spongy like the hair over the antelope^s 
body. They were growing from the surface of the black, soft skin and 
evidently later would have become embedded in the homy covering 
as it thickened and hardened into the rough, strong shell of the ripened 
horn. As the horn thickens and hardens from the tip downward, this 
hairy covering is buried, rather than absorbed, and becomes a part of 
the horn. It furnishes a good illustration of the recognized fact that 
the horns of the Antilocapridse as well as of the Bovidse are but a modi- 
fied form of hair growth. 
Near the base of this horn, on the side opposite the point, is a swelling 
with a little naked knob or point where the side prong is beginning to 
show. This knob, which has a permanent position marked by a bulge 
on the side of the bony horn-core, indicates approximately the middle 
of the anterior edge of the core. The process of ripening and hardening 
from the point downward toward the base is evidently long and slow, 
but even in this young horn there are three inches of good hard point, 
and evidently before the horns become fully matured to the base in 
mid-summer, they might be very useful for defense. They are mainly, 
however, weapons for the fall tournaments in which the bucks fight 
for supremacy. 
These facts recorded while fresh in mind may add something to the 
already voluminous reports on this most unique of our North American 
mammals. Every item of information in regard to the prong-horn 
should be saved for the species is steadily and surely shpping away from 
us and unless more intelhgent study of their habits and requirements 
are made and more effective protection than state laws have ever 
afforded be given them, the next generation will know them only by 
the written records and a few museum specimens. 
