200 
PRONG-HORNED ANTEI.OPE. 
“ Three Mamelles,” about sixty miles west of Fort Union, early one morning 
an antelope was heard snorting, and was seen by some of our party for a 
few minutes only. This snorting, as it is called, resembles a loud whistling, 
singing sound prolonged, and is very diflerent from the loud and clear 
snorting of our common deer ; but it has always appeared to us to be almost 
useless to attempt to describe it ; and although at this moment we have 
the sound of the antelope’s snort in our ears, we feel quite unable to give 
its equivalent in words or syllables. 
The antelope has no lachrymal pits under the eyes, as have deer and 
elks, nor has it any gland, on the hind leg, so curious a feature in many of 
those animals of the deer tribe which drop their horns annually, and only 
wanting (so far as our knowledge extends) in the Cervus RicJiardsonii, 
which we consider in consequence as approaching the genus Antilope, and 
in a small deer from Yucatan and Mexico, of which we had a living 
specimen for some time in our possession. 
The prong-horned antelope often dies on the open prairies during severe 
winter weather, and the remains of shockingly poor, starved, miserable indi- 
viduals of this species, in a state of the utmost emaciation, are now and then 
found dead in the winter, even near Fort Union and other trading posts. 
The present species is caught in pens in the same manner nearly as the 
bison, (which we have already described at p. 97) but is generally despatch- 
ed with clubs, principally by the women. In the winter of 1840, when the 
snow was deep in the ravines, having drifted, Mr. Laidlaw, who was 
then at Fort Union, caught some of them by following them on horse- 
back and forcing them into these drifts, which in places were as much as 
ten to twelve feet deep. They were brought to the fort in a sleigh, and 
let loose about the rooms ; they were to appearance so very gentle that 
the people suffered their children to handle them, although the animals 
were loose. They were placed in the carpenter’s shop, one broke its 
neck by leaping over a turning-lathe, and the rest all died ; for as soon as 
they had appeased the cravings of hunger, they began to fret for their 
accustomed libertjq and regained all their original wildness. They leaped, 
kicked and butted themselves against every obstacle, until to much exhaust- 
ed to recover. — These individuals were all captured by placing nooses, 
fixed on the end of long poles, round their necks, whilst they were embedded 
in the soft and deep snow drifts, to which they had been driven by Mr. 
Laidlaw 
There are some peculiarities in the gait of this species that we have 
not yet noticed. The moment they observe a man or other strange object 
producing an alarm, they bound off for some thirty or forty yards, raising- 
all their legs at the same time, and bouncing, at it were, from tAvo to three 
