Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/511

PRONGHORN. robust; the head is carried erect, while the bounding gait and alert air are gazelle-like. (See Colored Plate of .) The animal differs from the true antelopes and from all other ruminants in the total absence of ‘false hoofs,’ and in the remarkable nature of its horns, which are deciduous. The skull is surmounted by two spike-like horn-cores, rising over the great eye-orbit and leaning outward. These are covered with a skin and coat of bristly hairs which agglutinate at the tip and change into a compressed horny sheath, the change proceeding toward the base until the whole is sheathed with horn. These stand about a foot in height, are curved inward, often so as to be truly lyrate, and—unlike any other sheath-horn known—are branched, having one prong (occasionally more) on the anterior edge. Every winter these horns are pushed off by new hairy growths beneath them, comparable to the ‘velvet’ of deer's antlers, which in turn harden into another pair of true horns. This distinction is deemed sufficient to justify placing the pronghorn in a separate family, the Antilocapridæ, intermediate between the giraffes and the Bovidæ. The horns of the female are rudimentary. The pronghorn is provided with several glands which secrete strong-smelling substances, especially during the rutting season. The most notable of these glands are just below the ear, one on each side. In summer the hair of the pronghorn is smooth and flexible, but as winter approaches it lengthens; each hair becomes thick, its interior becomes white and spongy, and it loses its flexibility, at last becoming brittle, so that its point is easily rubbed off. This singular fur forms a close and warm covering for the animal, but renders the skin useless as fur, nor does it make serviceable leather. The flesh, however, is delicious.



The pronghorn is confined to the open plains and thinly wooded parks and valleys of the Western mountains. It is suspicious and timid, and liable to panic, when it will dance up and down; but when once away goes at a leaping pace which few greyhounds can outstrip. Early in spring the does separate from the winter herd and in some retired spot bring forth usually t«o kids. The does and kids soon gather into bands for mutual assistance in resisting their foes, and in the early autumn they are joined by the bucks, whose horns are new, and who engage in fierce contests for the possession of the does. In former days these bands numbered thousands, and those in the northern districts regularly migrated to the southward when snow came. At the beginning of the present century the pronghorns had been so reduced and scattered that no herds of great number could gather.

Consult: Caton, Antelope and Deer of America (New York, 1877); Lydekker, Royal Natural History, vol. ii. (London, 1895); Canfield, Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society (London, 1866); and books on sport in the Western United States and Canada.  PRONOUN (Lat. pronomen, word standing in place of a noun, from pro, for, before + nomen, name, word, noun). In (q.v.), a word which stands for or instead of a (q.v.). While the noun is at first concrete, the pronoun is abstract, and thus represents psychologically a much higher concept than the noun. That it is of later development than the noun seems clear from its composite or suppletive inflection, being made up of a number of stems, still seen, for instance, in I, me, we, us. It had originally no connection with the noun, from which it differed in inflection and in usage. At a later period, however, the nominal and pronominal systems of (q.v.) influenced each other, so that the pronoun shows a number of terminations which properly belong only to the noun, and vice versa. A careful distinction must be observed between pronouns with gender and those without gender. To the former class originally belonged only the pronouns of the first and second persons and the reflexive pronoun of the third person (represented, for instance, by German ich, du, sich). All other pronouns had gender, which was probably natural, not grammatical in character. (See .) These pronouns are demonstrative (as Sanskrit sa, Greek , Latin ille, ‘that,’ later ‘the’), from which the modern pronouns of the third person are derived (compare English he, she, it with Anglo-Saxon hē, hēo, hit); relative (as Sanskrit ya, Greek, Latin quis, English who), which are more intimately connected with the interrogatives than the demonstratives; and the interrogatives (as Sanskrit ka, Greek, Latin quis, English who). Of these classes the demonstrative, which is local in force, is probably the oldest. The relative, which introduces the relatively late sentence-form of hypotaxis or subordinate clauses as contrasted with the more primitive parataxis or coördination, seems to be the youngest. Between the two, yet nearer to the demonstrative in point of age, stands the interrogative, which introduces a question. Consult: Zimmern, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Berlin, 1898); Brugmann, Vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Spachen, vol. ii. (Strassburg, 1892).  PRONUNCIATION OF FOREIGN NAMES (Lat. pronunciatio, pronuntiatio, from pronunciare, pronuntiare, to pronounce, proclaim, from pro, before, for + nuntiare, to announce, from nuntius, messenger). The correct pronunciation of a proper name chiefly depends upon giving to the letters their correct value and to the syllables their correct degree of stress. Most of the sounds in the modern foreign languages are fairly well represented by the ordinary sounds of spoken English, but there are some that are so distinct that a reasonably correct pronunciation involves