Previously, we have based strong hopes for the preservation of the antelope species on the herd in the Yellowstone Park, but those animals are vanishing fearfully fast.  In 1906, Dr. Palmer reported that “About fifteen hundred antelope came down to the feeding grounds near the haystacks in the vicinity of Gardiner.”  In 1908 the Yellowstone Park was credited with two thousand head. To-day, the number alive, by actual count, is only five hundred head; and this after twenty-five years of protection!  Where have the others gone?  This shows, alas! that perpetual close seasons can not always bring back the vanished thousands of game!

[Illustration:  PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE]

Here is a reliable report (June 29, 1912) regarding the prong-horned antelope in Lower California, from E.W.  Nelson:  “Antelope formerly ranged over nearly the entire length of Lower California, but are now gone from a large part of their ancient range, and their steadily decreasing numbers indicate their early extinction throughout the peninsula.”

In captivity the antelope is exasperatingly delicate and short-lived.  It has about as much stamina as a pet monkey.  As an exhibition animal in zoological gardens and parks it is a failure; for it always looks faded, spiritless and dead, like a stuffed animal ready to be thrown into the discard.  Zoologists can not save the prong-horn species save at long range, in preserves so huge that the sensitive little beast will not even suspect that it is confined.

Two serious attempts have been made to transplant and acclimatize the antelope—­in the Wichita National Bison Range, in Oklahoma, and in the Montana Bison Range, at Ravalli.  In 1911 the Boone and Crockett Club provided a fund which defrayed the expenses of shipping from the Yellowstone Park a small nucleus herd to each of those ranges.  Eight were sent to the Wichita Range, of which five arrived alive.  Of the seven sent to the Montana Range, four arrived alive and were duly set free.  While it seems a pity to take specimens from the Yellowstone Park herd, the disagreeable fact is that there is no other source on which to draw for breeding stock.

The Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, in Canada, still permit the hunting and killing of antelope; which is wholly and entirely wrong.

THE BIG-HORN SHEEP.—­Of North American big game, the big-horn of the Rockies will be, after the antelope, the next species to become extinct outside of protected areas.  In the United States that event is fast approaching.  It is far nearer than even the big-game sportsmen realize.  There are to-day only two localities in the four states that still think they have killable sheep, in which it is worth while to go sheep-hunting.  One is in Montana, and the other is in Wyoming.  In the United States a really big, creditable ram may now be regarded as an impossibility.  There are now perhaps half a dozen guides who can find killable sheep in our country, but the game is nearly always young rams, under five years of age.