hunter's deadly rifle; he fires, and almost to a certainty one of the beautiful animals springs into the air and tumbles head-foremost on the ground. For a moment the survivors run off from their fallen friend, but seldom go far. Once more they return within easy rifle-shot of the hunter. Unless, however, he requires the meat, he must be greatly lacking in right feeling if he slaughters uselessly so beautiful an animal. The antelope becomes so easily confused, that when met on the prairies it frequently runs headlong into the midst of the travellers. The creatures are often killed by being surrounded, when the whole herd are driven into an enclosed spot and become the easy prey of the hungry hunters. The Bighorn, or Mountain Sheep. Amid the almost inaccessible peaks of the Rocky Mountains, herds of animals with enormous horns may be seen leaping from rock to rock, sometimes descending at one spring from a height of twenty or thirty feet--when, the Indians assert, they invariably alight on their horns, and by this means save their bones from certain dislocation. They are bighorns, or mountain sheep, and are considered the chief game of these regions. The animals appear to partake both of the nature of the deer and of the goat. They resemble the latter more especially in their habits, and in frequenting the most lofty and inaccessible regions, whence, except in the severest weather, they seldom descend to the upland valleys. In size the bighorn is between the domestic sheep and the common red-deer of America, but is more strongly built than the latter. It is of a brownish-dun colour, with a somewhat white streak on the hind-quarters. The tail is shorter than that of the deer, and tipped with black. As the age of the animal increases, the coat becomes of a darker tinge. The horns, of the male especially, are of great size, curving backwards about three feet in length, and twenty inches in circumference at the roots. Frequently on the highest spot one of the band is stationed as a sentinel, and whilst the others are feeding he looks out for the approach of danger. They have even more acute sight and smell than the deer. On an alarm being given the whole herd scampers up the mountain, higher and higher, every now and then halting on some overhanging crag and looking down oh the object which may have caused them alarm; then once more they pursue their ascent, and as they bound up the steep sides of the mountains throw down an avalanche of rocks and stones.