and goats. For twenty years we have been toiling to save the American bison from total extinction.

Thanks to the efforts of the United States and Canadian Governments, the New York Zoological Society and the American Bison Society, the buffalo now is secure against extinction. Our government now owns and maintains six herds, having a total of about 570 head, and the Canadian Government owns about 1,600 head. Our chief hope is based on the herd in the Montana National Bison Range, now containing 134 head, living in a rich pasture of 29 square miles, capable of supporting 1,000 bison without the purchase of a pound of hay. That herd has risen from 37 head presented in 1909 by the American Bison Society. The Wichita and Wind Cave National Herds were founded by herds drawn from the New York Zoological Park, and presented by the Zoological Society.

Excepting for the white-tailed deer and the elk, it is to-day a grave question whether there will be any big game hunting in the United States twenty years hence.

The Prong-Horned Antelope

It is now painfully certain that nevermore will there be any hunting of the prong-horned antelope in our country. There has been none for several years, but for all that the remaining bands are everywhere (save in two localities) reported as steadily diminishing. Even in the Yellowstone Park the antelope herds are now but little better than stationary. Excepting the goat and musk-ox, the prong-horn is North America’s most exclusively American species of big game. It is so very odd that it occupies a Family all alone. It is the only living hollow-horned ruminant that sheds its horns, every year.

But this nimble-footed rover is not fitted to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune A. D. 1916. It has no more staying power than a French poodle, and it wilts and dies literally at the first breath of adversity. It will not breed in captivity, nor does it live long in any kind of confinement. It is subject to an incurable mouth disease called lumpy-jaw, and will secretly and joyously carry the unseen germs of it for six months for the purpose of passing quarantine and inoculating an innocent herd in some unsuspecting Zoological Park.

PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE

From a painting by Carl Rungius

Half a dozen Western States have little isolated bands of antelope that they are trying to preserve; but all save two are steadily diminishing. In the Montana and Wichita Bison Ranges, of 29 and 14 square miles, efforts are being made to establish herds. Canada is making two large prairie preserves, under fence, especially for the purpose of saving the antelope from extinction. Taking all these efforts together, there is a fighting chance that the species eventually will be saved from oblivion, but at present the odds are very much against it. As a sport with the rifle, however, legitimate prong-horned antelope hunting is already as extinct as mammoth-spearing on glacial ice.

Mountain Sheep

MOUNTAIN SHEEP

Over the Rocky Mountain sheep there is a halo of glamour that is to every big-game hunter a veritable cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Standing out conspicuously apart from all other American hoofed game, the big-horn thrills and challenges the gentleman sportsman as no other big game does at this time. (There are fashions, even in the hunting of big game!) A sportsman will go farther, spend more and endure more to get “a big ram” as a trophy of his manhood in the chase than for any other species. Why is it? It is because the old big-horn rams are found where the scenery is grandest