SKULL OF THE PRONGHORN ANTELOPE.
The horns—not antlers, be it noticed—are, it is now certain, detached each year from their supporting cores, and subsequently dropped, to be replaced by others which at the time of shedding have already advanced some way in growth, although at first they are very pale and soft. In this respect the Pronghorn is not resembled by any other Antelope, and differs entirely from the Deer.
Of the species Dr. Canfield, in the letter above referred to, gives several interesting details as to its habits, from which we may infer that they are not so cunning or so fleet as their allies in Africa and India:—“From the 1st of September to the 1st of March they run in bands, the bucks, does, and kids all together,” shortly after which time the young are born, upon which the bucks separate and wander about alone until the following season. “A band of Pronghorn Antelopes, when frightened, never run directly away from you, but cross over in front of you, running across your path from one side to the other repeatedly, and keeping about a hundred yards ahead. On this account it is sometimes easy, on a smart Horse, to run into a drove of them and catch one of them with a noose. When one is alone, and is watched by a person or animal and becomes frightened, it makes a sort of shrill blowing noise like a whistle, and then commences bounding off. On the neck it has a heavy, thick, chestnut-coloured mane, five or six inches long, and on the rump a white patch of coarse hair; and when the animal is frightened it always erects the mane and the hair and this white spot, thus giving it a very singular and characteristic appearance as it runs bounding away from you. The Antelope has a very peculiar odour, strong and, to some people, offensive.... On the whole, I consider the meat of the Pronghorn to be very excellent.”
PRONGHORN ANTELOPE.
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LARGER IMAGE
There is a peculiarity in the feet of the Pronghorn in which it resembles the Giraffe, a few Antelopes, and the different members of the Camel tribe, namely, that the false hoofs, as well as their supporting bones, are entirely absent, from which it may be inferred, as is the case, that the number of digits in each foot is only two.
In the females of the species the horns are present, but they are much reduced in size, and almost hidden in the hairy covering of the head. The end of the nose—in other words, the muffle—is hairy, and not, therefore, damp at all times in any part, as is that of the Ox and most ruminants. The tail is very short; the fur is very short and close set, being stiff and wavy. Its colour is a pale fawn above and on the limbs, whilst the breast as well as the abdomen are a yellowish-white, at the same time that the tail and round about it are pure white, as is the inside of the ear.
Although the Pronghorn is here described after all the more ordinary hollow-horned Ruminantia, it is far from impossible that it is much more intimately related to some one of the above-mentioned families than to the others. It must either have originated direct from the earliest type of Bovine Ruminant, and from that time continued isolated until the present day, or it may have been a straggler from some already differentiated group, like the Gazelles, for instance, that, arriving in a land so unlike the haunts of its progenitors, took on itself from altered circumstances peculiar modifications in its horn-growth and foot-form which have resulted in its present characteristics.