PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE. 
201 
feet above the ground after this they stretch their bodies out and gallop 
at an extraordinary speed. We have seen some which, when started, 
would move off and run a space of several miles, in what we thought did 
not exceed a greater number of minutes ! 
From what we have already said, it will be inferred that the woll is 
one of the most formidable enemies of this species. We have, however, 
not yet mentioned that in some very cold and backward seasons the young, 
when first born at such times, are destroyed by these marauders in such 
numbers that the hunters perceive the deficiency and call them scarce for 
the next season. Antelopes are remarkably fond of saline water or salt, 
and know well where the salt-licks are found. They return to them daily, 
if near their grazing grounds, and lay down by them, after licking the 
salty earth or drinking the salt water. Here they will remain for hours 
at a t ime, in fact until hunger drives them to seek in other places the 
juicy and nourishing grasses of the prairie. This species is fond ot taking 
its stand, when alone, on some knoll, from which it can watch the move- 
ments of all wanderers on the plains around, and from which a fair chance 
to run in any direction is secured, although the object of its fear may be con- 
cealed from view occasionally by a ravine, or by another projecting ridge 
like its own point of sight. 
We had in our employ a hunter on the Yellow-Stone River, who killed 
two i'emale antelopes and broke the leg of a third at one shot from an 
ordinary western rifle. The ball must have passed entirely through the 
two first of these animals. 
We have represented on our plate two males and a female in the fore- 
ground, with a flock of these timid creatures running at full speed in the 
distance. 
We subjoin the following account of the Antelopes seen by J. W- Audubox 
and his party on their overland journey through Northern Mexico and 
Sonora to California. 
‘•Leaving Altar, Sonora, the country was flat and uninteresting, except 
(hat large patches of coarse grass, sometimes miles in length, took the 
place of the naked clay plains we had been riding through. The tall 
cactus, described by Fremont andEMORV, in its eccentric forms was remark- 
able enough even by daylight, but at night, a very little superstition, with 
the curved and curiously distorted forms, produced in some cases by dis- 
ease of the plant, or by the violent gales that periodically sweep those 
prairies, might make the traveller suppose this was a region in which 
beings supernatural stalked abroad. The shrill whistle of the Antelope, new 
to us all, added to the wild and unearthly character of the scene. The 
Maricapos Indians were said to be friendly, hut we did not ktiow it^ and 
VOL. II. — 26 . 
