Enos A. Mills

I awakened one morning out on the Great Plains to find that in the dark I had camped near the nursery of a mother antelope and her two kids. It was breakfast time. Commonly both antelope children nurse at once, but this morning it was one at a time. Kneeling down, the suckling youngster went after the warm meal with a morale that never even considered Fletcherizing. Occasionally he gave a vigorous butt to hasten milk delivery.

Breakfast over, the mother had these youngsters lie low in the short grass of a little basin. She left them and began feeding away to the south. The largest objects within a quarter of a mile were a few stunted bunches of sagebrush. I moved my sleeping bag a short distance into an old buffalo wallow and watched her. She fed steadily up a moderate slope but was always in position where she could see the youngsters and the approach of anything in the unobstructed opening round them. This mother was not eating the abundant buffalo grass celebrated for its nutrition, nor any of the blooming plants. She was eating, and plainly with relish, simply the gray-green bitter leaves of the shrubby scattered sage. On reaching the low summit of the prairie swell she paused for a little while on the skyline, then started on a run for a water-hole about two miles distant.

A few seconds later a fox-like head peeped over a little ridge a few hundred feet from the kids. Then a distant bunch of sagebrush transformed itself into another moving form, and two coyotes trotted into the scene. Evidently these coyotes knew that somewhere near two youngsters were hidden. They followed the mother’s trail by scent and kept their eyes open, looking for the youngsters.

Old antelope have perhaps more numerous scent glands than other big wild animals, but evidently a young antelope gives off little or no scent. Its youthful colour blends so well with its surroundings when it lies down that it is difficult to see it. Once the young flatten out and freeze upon the grassy earth they offer but little that is revealing even to the keenest eyes and noses.

Both coyotes paused within a few feet of one of the kids without either seeing or scenting it. It was flattened out between two clumps of sagebrush. Finally, unable to find the youngsters, the coyotes trotted off along the mother’s trail.

I went over to have a look at the children. Though I knew just about where they were I looked and circled for some time before my eyes detected them. They were grayish brown with the outlines of future colour scheme faintly showing. Within two feet of each I stood and watched them. A fly crawled over the eye and ear of one kid and an ant over the nose of the other, and yet neither made a move.

For about two weeks, while the legs of the young are developing liveliness, the mother keeps aloof from her kind. She often has a trying time with enemies.

As soon as the coyotes were out of sight I hastened to the highest near-by point hoping with glasses to see the mother antelope. She was just leaving the water-hole. Her movements evidently were a part of a strategic plan to deceive the watchful eyes and the cunning noses of enemies, chiefly coyotes. She fed a quarter of a mile south, then ran on for more than a mile still farther. She then galloped more than two miles northeast and later, with many doublings which involved her trail, worked back to the youngsters.

In following and watching the movements of the mother I stumbled over a lone antelope kid about half a mile from the other two. I returned later and found that it was entangled between the twisted low-lying limbs of a sagebrush. Not until I laid hold of the kid to drag it out did it make a move. Then it struggled and gave a low bleat.

Realizing that this might bring the mother like lightning I let go and rose up. There she was, coming like the wind, and only four or five hundred feet away, indifferent to the fact that man is the most dangerous of enemies. Just how close she might have come, just what might have happened had I not straightened up at that moment, is sheer guesswork. But the freed youngster butted me violently behind and then ran off to meet his mother.

During most of the year the great silent plains are at rest in tawny and gray brown. The dreamy, sunny distances show only moving cloud shadows. A brief barrage of dust storm sometimes sweeps across or a wild drive of tumbleweeds with a front from horizon to horizon goes bounding and rolling toward the rim, where they go over and vanish. But these endless distances are palpitating with flowers and song when the young antelope are born.

One May morning a flock of blackbirds alighted upon a leafy cottonwood tree—a lone tuft in an empire of treeless distances. They sang all at once—a whirlwind of song. Two antelope herds were on separate skylines. The silvery, melodious peal of the yellow-breasted meadow lark rang out all over the wide wild prairie. Prairie dogs scampered, barked, and played; butterflies circled and floated above the scattered and stunted sage; thousands of small birds were busy with nest and song, and countless ragged spaces of brilliant wild flowers illuminated the grass-green surface to every horizon.

The antelope is known as the pronghorn, because of a single small prong on each horn. This prong is more like a guard and serves as a hilt. In fighting an antelope often catches its opponent’s thrust on this prong. The horn commonly is less than ten inches long. Many females do not have horns, and rarely are these fully developed on any female.

Deer and elk have deciduous horns—that is, horns that are shed annually. Goat and bighorn never shed their horns. But each year antelope sheds the outer part—the point and sheath—of the horn, retaining the stubs or stumps which grow new horns.

The antelope has a number of marked characteristics and some of these are unique. It is without dew claws; the hair is hollow and filled with pitch; teeth are of peculiar pattern; it eats mostly bitter or pungent food; has large, long-range eyes of almost telescopic power; has numerous and scattered scent glands; is without colour camouflage—in fact, its colour is in part revealing, for the bristling of its white buttocks serves to give signal flashes. The antelope is the plains’ graceful racing model of long and successful development. It is either the least—the smallest—or near the smallest of our hoofed wild animals.

The antelope is specialized in speed. If there were to be a free-for-all race on the plains, with deer, antelope, elk, sheep, bear, lion, coyote, fox, dog, horse, and even the rabbit as starters, the antelope generally would be the winner, whether the race was for one mile or ten. Perhaps the blooded race horse and the greyhound would outstrip him, but among wild animals the antelope is the speedy one.

Wolves and coyotes pursue the pronghorn in relays or capture it strategically through various kinds of mutual aid. Now and then an antelope will turn upon its pursuers and fight them fiercely, occasionally triumphantly.

On the Great Plains in western Nebraska I saw two speeding objects stirring dust on the horizon. It was an antelope cut off from the flock and pursued by a wolf. They plunged for a moment or two in a dip of the plains, then reappeared. With glasses on them I saw the pursuing wolf drop out and another wolf leap from concealment to relieve him. Following them through glasses as they raced on skyline against a cloud, dropped below eyeline, dashed behind a butte, swiftly the great circle followed brought them within half a mile. In plain view another wolf leaped into the race. The antelope was nearly exhausted. The wolves were leaping at her throat as she disappeared over a ridge. Little puffs of dust showed the advance of pursuer and pursued. These grew dim and I watched for the runners to come up on the skyline. But they never appeared.

Photo. by Enos A. Mills

A Wild Life Trail Centre

I watched a coyote walk back and forth close to a mother antelope with two young kids. She paid no apparent attention to him. But she was besieged. After two or three hours he was relieved by another coyote. This was a new and rather leisurely way of relaying. Evidently the devilish plan was to wear the antelope out or stay until she was forced to go for water and then seize the youngsters.

It was more than fifteen miles to the next water-hole. This may have been the second or even the third day that the coyotes had been worrying her. I frightened them away, but had not gone half a mile when I saw them circling back again. I do not know the end of the story, but as I walked on I wished that this mother antelope might have possessed the special[Pg 181]
[Pg 182] development of the pronghorn in the desert regions—the ability to do without water for days at a time.

The food of the pronghorn is sage, greasewood, sometimes cactus, and, on the desert, broomrape. I do not recall ever seeing him eat grass. In the extremely arid regions of the Southwest the local flocks, in common with mountain sheep and other animals of the desert, have developed the habit of doing without water for days—sometimes for a period of two weeks or longer have no other moisture than that furnished by the plants eaten.

When the young antelope are about three weeks old they appear to have full use of their legs and usually follow the mother in feedings and fights. At this time numbers of mothers and youngsters collect and run together. They are thus enabled to give mutual aid and to withstand coyotes and other enemies better. Sometimes under dangerous conditions the young are left behind while some of the mothers go for water, and on their return the remaining ones go. Just why this mutual aid is not practised while the young are almost helpless is not clear.

In early autumn all ages and sexes unite and commonly run together, often in large flocks, throughout the winter. The youngsters often play together. Frequently one of the males is the lively leader of twenty or thirty. At other times the old antelopes play, go through a series of marches and countermarches. They race back and forth and over short circles. When thus engaged they commonly have sentinels posted on the outskirts.

Most other animals appear to forget possible enemies while playing, but the nervous antelope, with big open spaces round it, appears never to be quite in repose.

Depending upon speed rather than upon stealth, fighting ability, or concealment, as a means of escaping enemies, and living in the plains with a magnificence of unobstructed distances, it has learned to be watchful, to use sentinels, and to flee even when danger is afar.

Usually when the antelope lies down it selects a spot well away from any ravine, bluff, willow clump, or sagebrush thicket that could conceal an enemy or that would enable an enemy to approach it closely unseen.

Under most conditions the female appears to be the acknowledged leader. In the majority of instances in which I have watched moving flocks of antelope—fleeing small numbers or a number of alarmed antelope preparing to move—it was under female leadership.

The pronghorn lives in a home territory. This I think is rarely more than six or eight miles in diameter. If pursued by man, dogs, or wolves it is likely to run in great circles, keeping within the bounds of home territory. Most antelope are not migratory, but in a few localities the flocks make a short migration. For winter they may travel to a more broken locality, one that gives some shelter from the wind and contains spaces off which the wind sweeps the snow.

The antelope makes long leaps but not high jumps. I watched an antelope that had been separated from the flock hurrying to rejoin it. In its way was a line of willows along the dry, shallow water channel. This willow stretch was not wide nor high. A deer would have leaped it without the slightest hesitation. The antelope went far round and jumped wide gullies, but made no attempt to leap this one low line of willows. Being a plains animal, knowing but little of cliffs and timber, it has not learned high jumping.

For ages the antelope was thickly scattered over the Great Plains and the small parks of the West, Northwest, and Southwest. Fifty years ago they were numbered by millions. The present antelope population numbers not more than 15,000. Howard Eaton tells me that years ago he sometimes saw several thousand in a single day. Once when a boy I saw at least a thousand in a North Park, Colorado, flock.

A few are now protected in the national parks and in private antelope reserves. But they are verging well toward extermination. Rarely does the antelope thrive in captivity. Apparently the food ordinarily fed it in captivity does not agree with it.

Mature antelope are marked with what may be called revealing colours, which advertise their presence and make them easily visible at long distances: rich tan to grayish brown on the back and sides, with clean white buttocks and sides of face and belly; the throat faintly striped with white and brown; and a touch of near-black on the head. The antelope’s colour is so distinctive and stands out so well against most backgrounds that it may be classed as an animal with revealing coloration.

Two white rump patches flare up during excitement; the crowded and bristling hairs may be seen at surprisingly long distances.

Possibly these hairs are also under conscious control. At any rate, let one or a number on a ridge see an approaching enemy and these white patches stand out, and the next adjacent flock, even though two or three miles away, will see the sign—or signal—and also take alarm. Though the antelope does not do any wireless wigwagging, the sudden flare of white buttocks is revealing.

Depending chiefly on speed in escaping his enemies, the antelope has also the added advantage of being able to detect an enemy while he is still afar. The plains where he lives enable him to see objects miles away, and his eyes being of telescopic nature ofttimes enable him to determine whether a distant moving object is friend or foe.

It thus is important that an antelope be so marked that another antelope will recognize him at long range. Each flock of antelope watches the distant surrounding flocks, and each flock thus mutually aids the others by acting as an outlying sentinel for it. If a flock sees an object approaching that may be an enemy it strikes attitudes which proclaim alarm, and, definitely marked, their actions at once give eye messages of alarm to all flocks in view and close enough to make out what they are doing. It would thus seem that the revealing colours of the antelope have been of help in protecting—that is, perpetuating, the species.

The antelope is nervous and is easily thrown into a panic. Though it is often canny and courageous, it lacks the coolness, the alertness, and the resourcefulness—that is to say, the quick wit and adaptability—of the mountain sheep. In the Yellowstone and the Wind Cave National Parks are numbers of antelope. Many of these have readjusted themselves to the friendly conditions and have lost most of their nervousness and fear of man.

They have a bump of curiosity. I paused one afternoon to talk to a homesteader on the prairie. He was fencing, and presently commenced stretching a line of barbed wire. The penetrating squeaks of the wire reached the ears of several unseen antelope and appealed to their curiosity. They came close, about the distance from third to home plate.

Well might they have shown concern at barbed wire! It has wrought terrific destruction to the species.

A generation or so ago it appears to have been easy for the hunter by displaying a red flag or some partly concealed moving object to rouse antelope curiosity and to lure numbers. I have repeatedly seen this trick tried and a few times I have patiently endeavoured with this appeal to bring a flock within range of my double-barrelled field glass, but I didn’t succeed. They promptly went over the horizon. They are curious still, but have become wiser.

I suppose it will never do to reach final conclusions concerning what an animal will do under new conditions. After a few years of intimate acquaintance with the plains antelope I visited the Yellowstone region, thinking that I was well grounded in all antelope habits. One day I came upon a flock in a deep grassy forest bay in the edge of a dense woods. Thinking to get close I walked in behind them. To my amazement they darted into the woods, dodging trees right and left like lightning, and hurdling fallen trees as readily as any deer or mountain sheep that I have seen. They well illustrated a phase of animal behaviour called ecology, or response to environment.

The pronghorn or antelope is distinctly American. Fossilized antelope bones have been found in western Nebraska that are estimated to be two million years old. This antelope family is not related to the African or Asiatic antelope, nor to any American mammal species; it is alone in the world.

Many prehistoric species of animals that lived in the same scenes with the ancient ancestors of the antelope have been extinct for thousands of years. The rhinoceros, toothed birds, American horses, ponderous reptiles, and numerous other species failed to do what the antelope did—readjust to each radical change and survive. Climatic changes, new food, strange enemies, uplifts, subsidences, wild volcanic outpourings, the great Ice Age—over all these the antelope has triumphed.