Owing to their small horns and unpalatable flesh they are less sought after by hunters than mountain sheep, and thus continue to exist in many accessible places where otherwise they would long since have become exterminated. They are frequently visible on the high ledges of a mountain across the bay from the city of Vancouver and are not difficult to find in many other coastal localities.
Although marvelously surefooted and fearless in traversing the faces of high precipitous slopes, goats lack the springy grace and vivacity of mountain sheep and move with comparative deliberation. They are reputed to show at times a stupid obstinacy when encountered on a narrow ledge, even to the point of disputing the right of way with the hunter.
Their presence lends interest to many otherwise grim and forbidding ranges where, amid a wilderness of glacier-carved escarpments, they endure the winter gales which for days at a time roar about their cliffs and send snow banners streaming from the jagged summits overhead.
Owing to the character of their haunts, mountain goats have few natural enemies. The golden and bald eagles now and then take toll among their kids, but the lynx and mountain lion, their four-footed foes, are not known to prey upon them to any considerable extent. Through overhunting they have vanished from some of their former haunts, but still hold their own in many places, and with effective protection will long continue to occupy their peculiar place in our fauna.
PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE (Antilocapra americana and its geographic races)
Unique among the antelope of the world, among which it has no near relatives, the prong-horn, because of its beauty of coloration, its grace, and fleetness, claims the attention of sportsmen and nature lovers alike. It is a smaller and slenderer animal than the larger forms of the Virginia deer. Its hair is coarse and brittle, and the spongy skin lacks the tough fiber needed to make good buckskin. Both sexes have horns, those of the doe being smaller and slenderer. One of the extraordinary peculiarities of this antelope is its habit of shedding the horns every fall and the developing new horns over the remaining bony core.
The rump patch of the prong-horn is formed of long pure white hairs, which in moments of excitement or alarm are raised on end to form two great chrysanthemum-like white rosettes that produce an astonishingly conspicuous directive color mark. The power to raise these hairs is exercised by the fawns when only a few days old. Even when the hairs are not erected the rump patch is conspicuous as a flashing white signal to a distance of from one to two miles as the antelope gallops away. When the animal whose rump signal has been plainly visible at a distance suddenly halts and faces about to look back, as is a common custom, its general color blends with that of the background and it vanishes from sight as by magic.
Early explorers discovered antelope in great abundance over a vast territory extending from near the present location of Edmonton, Alberta, south to near the Valley of Mexico, and from central Iowa west to the Pacific coast in California. They were specially numerous on the limitless plains of the “Great American Desert,” where our pioneers found them in great bands, containing thousands, among the vast herds of buffalo. So abundant were they that it has been estimated that on the Great Plains they equaled the buffalo in numbers. Now reduced to a pitiful remnant of their former numbers, they exist only in widely scattered areas, where they are constantly decreasing. Fortunately they are strictly protected by law in most of their remaining territory.
The great herds containing thousands of antelope were usually formed late in fall and remained together throughout the winter, separating into numerous smaller parties during the summer. For years following the completion of the transcontinental railroads they were commonly seen from the car windows as trains crossed the Great Plains. At such times their bright colors and graceful evolutions, as they swept here and there in erratic flight or wheeled in curiosity to gaze at the passing train, never failed to excite the deepest interest.
In early days prong-horns were noted for their curiosity and were frequently lured within gun-shot by waving a red flag or by other devices. I have repeatedly seen them circle or race a team, or a horseman, crossing their range. In racing a horseman traveling along an open road or trail they gradually draw nearer until finally every member of the band dashes madly by only a few yards in front and then straight away across the plains in full flight.