The range of these habitants of the cliffs extends from the head of Cook Inlet, Alaska, easterly and southerly through the mountains to Montana and Washington. Unlike mountain sheep, the goats do not appear to dislike the fogs and saline winds from the sea, and at various points along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska they range down precipitous slopes nearly to the shore. They are much more closely confined to rugged slopes and rocky ledges than the mountain sheep, which in winter commonly descend through the foothills to the border of the plains. Through summer and winter, goats find sufficient food in the scanty vegetation growing among the rocks, and their heavy coats of hair protect them from the fiercest winter storms. Owing to their small horns and unpalatable flesh they are less sought after by hunters than mountain sheep, and thus continue to exist in many accessible places where otherwise they would long since have become exterminated. They are frequently visible on the high ledges of a mountain across the bay from the city of Vancouver and are not difficult to find in many other coastal localities. Although marvelously surefooted and fearless in traversing the faces of high precipitous slopes, goats lack the springy grace and vivacity of mountain sheep and move with comparative deliberation. They are reputed to show at times a stupid obstinacy when encountered on a narrow ledge, even to the point of disputing the right of way with the hunter. Their presence lends interest to many otherwise grim and forbidding ranges where, amid a wilderness of glacier-carved escarpments, they endure the winter gales which for days at a time roar about their cliffs and send snow banners streaming from the jagged summits overhead. Owing to the character of their haunts, mountain goats have few natural enemies. The golden and bald eagles now and then take toll among their kids, but the lynx and mountain lion, their four-footed foes, are not known to prey upon them to any considerable extent. Through overhunting they have vanished from some of their former haunts, but still hold their own in many places, and with effective protection will long continue to occupy their peculiar place in our fauna. =PRONG-HORN ANTELOPE= (=Antilocapra americana= and its geographic races) Unique among the antelope of the world, among which it has no near relatives, the prong-horn, because of its beauty of coloration, its grace, and fleetness, claims the attention of sportsmen and nature lovers alike. It is a smaller and slenderer animal than the larger forms of the Virginia deer. Its hair is coarse and brittle, and the spongy skin lacks the tough fiber needed to make good buckskin. Both sexes have horns, those of the doe being smaller and slenderer. One of the extraordinary peculiarities of this antelope is its habit of shedding the horns every fall and the developing new horns over the remaining bony core.