“About the middle of June the doe produces generally two young ones which remain quiet for three days, but after that are strong enough to follow the mother wherever she goes. If caught when young they quickly become tame. Shortly after my arrival at Zagan-olui in May 1856 I saw a fawn of this Antelope feeding with the sheep and goats without requiring any particular attention.
“In summer these Antelopes are seldom hunted because they are only occasionally to be found, but they are much pursued during the early winter. There are, however, but few good Antelope-hunters, especially amongst the Russians. Various methods are adopted to get within shot. So long as no snow has fallen the Antelopes usually proceed about midday in small flocks to the freshwater lakes, where they break the thin ice with their hoofs in order to drink. They select the same spot every day for this purpose, and there it is that the hunter makes his hiding-place. Driven on to the thin ice, the Antelopes often fall through and thus become an easy prey.
“The ordinary way of hunting these Antelopes requires two sportsmen, one of whom acts as driver for the other. One of the hunters, as soon as he sees the Antelopes at a distance of 4 or 5 versts, lies down flat behind a marmot’s hillock, or finds some other hiding-place amongst the grass, and holds his gun ready, whilst the other makes a long circuit and drives the Antelopes towards his companion. The flying Antelopes generally depart in a line; but the old males do not always keep in front, an old female sometimes occupying that position. Pursued by the driver, the frightened animals proceed sometimes at a walk, at other times in a hasty gallop, during which they occasionally utter a sharp clear cry. When they come within range the driver imitates the call of a raven or the howl of a wolf to awake the attention of the animals and to allow the shooter to choose out his victim more readily. The Tunguts of the Steppes are especially skilled in finding and pursuing the Antelopes, and even the young maidens of these tribes take part in the chase. At one of the border-posts there was a celebrated hunter who in many winters had obtained as many as 200 of these Antelopes, which at this season go about in large herds. They are occasionally so crowded together, as this hunter assured me, that he had sometimes killed three and even four individuals with one bullet.
“In what large numbers this Antelope sometimes assembles I was able to convince myself in October 1856, when I was on the other side of the Argunj in Mongolian territory, for their tracks and their droppings were so numerous that it appeared as if some thousands of sheep had gone by.
“The winter pelts of this Antelope make very warm and durable coats (locally called dachas), which are worn with the hair outside: the hair is not so brittle as that of the Roe. They are valued at about one and a half roubles apiece. The flesh of this Antelope is very palatable and the old bucks in the autumn become extraordinarily fat.”
Fig. 56.
Skull and horns of the Mongolian Gazelle.
(P. Z. S. 1867, p. 245.)
In 1867 Dr. Lockhart brought home with him from Pekin two skulls of this Antelope and presented them to the British Museum. Dr. Gray read some notes on them at a meeting of the Zoological Society of London in February of that year. These notes were subsequently published in the ‘Proceedings,’ accompanied by an outline figure of one of the heads, which, by the kind favour of the Society, we are enabled to reproduce. Dr. Lockhart gave to Dr. Gray the following information as to this Antelope:—