mountains, where they form the chief game of the Shoshonees. They frequent opeii
prairies and low hills, interspersed with clumps of wood, but are not met with in
the continuously-wooded country. Major Smith has fallen into an unaccountable
mistake in supposing that the palmated antilope inhabits “ the bleak regions
near the frozen ocean,” and that specimens have been brought from Baffin’s Bay.
No specimens whatever of this antilope were obtained on any of the expeditions
to Baffin’s Bay, nor is there any mention made of the animal either in the
narrative or Zoological appendices of Captain Ross’s or of any of Captain Parry’s
voyages. If an imaginary line be drawn from the mouth of the Mackenzie, in
longitude 135° to the intersection of the 100th degree of longitude, with the 53cf
parallel of latitude, it cuts off to the eastward a very large portion of the continent,
which I am certain is not inhabited by either goat, sheep, or antilope. The only
ruminating animals of that rocky but well-watered tract, which, to the south of
latitude 60°, is in general woody, and to the north barren, are the moose, caribou,
and musk-ox. The last is confined to the northern parts, the moose to the
woody districts, and the caribou migrates from one to the other according to the
Season. The bison is found on the confines of the above-mentioned line, but
I believe does not wander far to the. eastward of the Slave and Churchill or
Missinippi rivers.
The head and horns of a young male, and the entire skin of a very young fawn
of this antilope were obtained at Carlton on Captain Franklin’s first expedition,
and deposited, the former at the College of Surgeons, and the latter at the British
Museum. On his last expedition, heads of the adult male and female, together
with the entire skin of a male two years old, were brought from the same place.
The latter is now in the Zoological Museum, and the accompanying etching by
Landseer was made from it, but the horns were added from the adult male head.
Very lately the institution just mentioned has received several good specimens
from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The prong-homed antilope appears on the banks of the Saskatchewan sometimes
a solitary animal, sometimes assembled in herds of ten or twelve. Its sight
and sense of smell are acute, and its speed is greater than that of any other
inhabitant of the plains, although I have been informed by Mr. Prudens, who has
resided forty years in that quarter, that when there is a little snow on the ground
it may, with some little management, be run down by a high bred horse. The Indian
hunters have no difficulty in bringing an antilope within gun-shot, by various
stratagems, such as lying down on their backs and kicking their heels in the air,
holding up a white rag, or clothing themselves in a white shirt, and shewing
themselves only at intervals*. By these and similar manoeuvres, the curiosity
of a herd of antilopes is so much roused that they wheel round the object of their
attention, and at length approach near enough to enable the hunter to make sure
of his mark. From this disposition of the prong-horned antilopes, they are more
easily killed than any of the deer of the district which they inhabit. They are,
however, objects of little interest to the Indians, who eat their flesh only when the
bison, moose or wapiti are not to be procured, and their skins are of no value as
an article of trade. The Mandans on the Missouri are said to capture them in
pounds. The antilopes feed on the grass of the plains during the summer, and,
according to Lewis and Clark, they migrate towards the mountains at the commencement
of winter, and subsist there during that season on leaves and shrubs.
They bring forth one, or more rarely two, young early in June.
D E S C R IP T IO N
Of a male, killed at Carlton, in June 1827— This individual must have attained a considerable age, as the sagittal and
some other sutures of the scull were obliterated.
Dental formula, incisors | , canines £5, grinders = 32.
Incisors white ; the two exterior incisors are much smaller than the others, and they are
all disposed with their edges tiled slightly over each other, and their points inclining outwards
in the segment of a circle, adapted to the reception of the callous pad, which terminates the
upper jaw. The upper grinders gradually increase in size from the first to the fourth, which
is considerably larger ; the fifth, is of equal or, perhaps, greater size than the fourth ; and the
sixth is somewhat smaller. The three posterior ones have each a deep furrow on their inner
sides, corresponding to a fold or ridge of enamel on the outer side, so, at first sight, each
appears like two teeth. The furrow is shallow in the third tooth, and does not exist in the
two first. In the lower jaw, the posterior grinder is the largest, and is divided into three
portions by two deep furrows on its exterior side. The fourth and fifth have, each, one deep
furrow, and the third has' two shallow furrows ; these three are nearly equal to each other
in size, and are a little smaller than the sixth one. The first and second lower grinders are
much smaller than the others.
In the scull there is a considerable depression in the frontal bone, between the anterior
parts of the orbits ; the orbits project considerably, and the solid osseous nucleus of the horn
is seated on the projecting plate. The supra-orbitar foramen is situated close to the inner
* “ This same curiosity enables the wolves to make them a prey : for sometimes one of them will leave his companions
to go and look at the wolves, which, should the antelope be frightened, at ârst crouch down, repeating the
manoeuvre, sometimes relieving each other, until they succeed in decoying it within their power, when it is pulled down
dud devoured.”—G o d m a n , Nat. Hist., vol. ii. p. 323.
2M