Photo by E. Landor] [Eating. so active that they cannot be kept FEMALE ANGORA GOAT. in enclosed fields. For this reason The breed from which mohair is obtained. they are not bred in any numbers in lands where agriculture is practised on modern principles; they are too enterprising and too destructive. Consequently the goat is usually only seen in large flocks on mountain pastures and rocky, uncultivated ground, where the flocks are taken out to feed by the children. is a valuable On the high Alps, in Greece, on the Apennines, and in Palestine the goat domestic animal. The milk, butter, and cheese, and also the flesh of the kids, are in great esteem. But wherever the land is enclosed, and high cultivation attempted, the goat is banished, and the more docile and controllable sheep takes its place. In Syria the goat is perhaps more docile and better understood as a dairy animal than elsewhere in the East. The flocks are driven into Damascus in the morning; and instead of a milk-cart calling, the flock itself goes round the city, and particular goats are milked before the doors of regular customers.

The EUROPEAN GOAT is a very useful animal for providing milk to poor families in large towns. The following account of its present uses : " The sheep,was recently published while preserving its hardy habits in some districts, as on Exmoor, in Wales, and the Highlands, adapts itself to richer food, and acquires the habits as Photo by E. Landor] ANGORA RAM. [Ealing. well as the digestion of domestication.,Inese goats were originally obtained from Turkey in Asia, and exported to South Africa.The goat remains, as in old days, the

of the World232 The Living Animals

enemy of trees, inquisitive, omnivorous, pugnacious. It is unsuited for the settled life of the it ill, and a good clay soil, on which cattle grow fat, kills it.English farm. Rich pasture makes But it is far from being disqualified for the service of some forms of modern civilisation by the survival of primitive habits. Though it cannot live comfortably in the smiling pastures of the low country, it is perfectly willing to exchange the rocks of the mountain for a stable-yard in town. Its love for stony places is amply satisfied by the granite pavement of a 'mews,' and it has been ascertained that goats fed in stalls and allowed to wander in paved courts and yards live longer and enjoy better health than those tethered even on light pastures. In parts of New York the city goats are said to nourish on the paste-daubed paper of the advertisements, which they nibble from the hoardings. It is beyond doubt that these hardy creatures are exactly suited for living in large towns; an environment of bricks and mortar and paving-stones suits them. Their spirits rise in proportion to what we should deem the depressing nature of their surroundings. They love to be tethered on a common, with scanty grass and a stock of furze-bushes to nibble. A deserted brick-field, with plenty of broken drain-tiles, rubbish-heaps, and still better. weeds, pleases them Almost any kind of food seems to suit them. Not even the pig has so varied a diet as the goat; it consumes and converts into milk not only great quantities of garden-stuff which would otherwise be wasted, but also, thanks to its love for eating twigs and shoots, it enjoys the prunings and loppings of bushes and trees. In the Mont d'Or district of France the goats are fed on oatmeal porridge. With this diet, and plenty of salt, the animals are scarcely ever ill, and never suffer from tuberculosis; they will often give ten times their own weight of milk in a year." The Kashmir shawls are made of

Photo by E. Landor] [Baling. the finest goats' hair. Most of this BKITISH GOAT. very soft hair is obtained from the

A much-neglected breed in this country. Note the shape of this animal..under-fur of goats kept in Tibet, and by the Kirghiz in Central Asia. Only a small quantity, averaging 3 ozs., is produced yearly by each animal. The wool is purchased by middlemen, and taken to Kashmir for manufacture.

In India the goat reaches perhaps the highest point of domestication. The flocks are in charge of herd-boys, but the animals are so docile that they are regarded with no hostility by the cultivators of corn and cereals. Tame goats are also kept throughout Africa. The valuable ANGOHA breed, from which " mohair " is obtained, is now domesticated in South Africa it is a great commercial success. The animals were and in Australia. In the former country obtained with great difficulty, as the Turkish owners did not wish to sell their best-bred goats; but when once established at the Cape, it was found that they proved better producers of mohair than when in their native province of Angora. The "clip" from their descendants steadily improves.

The Sheep and Goats 233

WILD GOATS.

THE TUR.

IN the Caucasus, both east and west, in the Pyrenees, and on the South Spanish sierras three fine wild goats, with some features not unlike the burhal sheep, are found. They are called TUR by the Caucasian mountaineers. The species found in the East Caucasus differs from that of the west of the range, and both from that of Spain. The EAST CAUCASIAN TUR is a massive, heavy animal, all brown in colour (except on the fronts of the legs, which are blackish), and with horns springing from each side of the skull like half-circles. The males are 38 inches high at the shoulder. The short beard and tail are blackish, and there is no white coat. theon The CAUCASIAN WEST ..,,,,. rp, TUR is much lighter in colour, than Ey permission of P. Thomas,FEMALEEsq.TOGGENBURG GOAT. that OI the iiaSt CaUCaSUS, and the These goats are milk-goats par excellence; they remain in profit for at least ten average from 110 to 120 gallons of homS point backwards more like those' montlls in tne y^1 Each goat produces on an , milk during the year oi the ibex, though set on the skull at a different angle. The SPANISH *~ TUR has the belly and inner sides of the legs white, and a blackish line along the flank, dividing the white from the brown; also a blackish chest, and some grey on the flank.

In the Caucasus the tur are found on the high crags above the snow-line in summer, whence they descend at night to feed on patches of upland grass; but the main home of the tur by day is above the snow-line. The Spanish species modifies its habits according to the ground on which it lives. Mr. E. N. Buxton found it in dense scrub, while on the Andalusian sierras it frequents bare peaks 10,000 feet high. In Spain tur are sometimes seen in flocks of By permission of P. Thomas, Esq. from 100 to 150 each.

STUD TOGGENBURG GOAT.

THE PERSIAN WILD GOAT. This breed originally came from Switzerland, but is now well known in England. The animals are fine in bone, have a long, thin neck, with two tassel-like

The original of our domesticated appendages. goat is thought by some to be the PASANG, or PERSIAN WILD GOAT. It is a fine animal, with large scimitar-shaped horns, curving backwards, flattened laterally, and with knobs on the front edge at irregular intervals. It is more slender in build than the tur, light brown in general colour, marked with a black line 30

along the nape and back, black tail, white belly, blackish shoulder-stripe, and a black line dividing the hinder part of the flank from the white belly. Formerly found in the islands of South-eastern Europe, it now inhabits parts of the Caucasus, the Armenian Highlands, Mount Ararat, and the Persian mountains as far east as Baluchistan. A smaller race is found in Sind. It lives in herds, sometimes of considerable size, and frequents not only the high ground, but the mountain forests and scrub, where such cover exists. The domesticated goat of Sweden is said to be certainly a descendant of this species.

THE IBEX.

all the wild goats, several species, differing Of the IBEX, perhaps the best known of somewhat in size and in the form of their horns, are found in various parts of the Old World. Of these, the ARABIAN IBEX inhabits the mountains of Southern Arabia, Palestine, and Sinai,

J3y permission of P. Thomas, Esq.

SCHWARTZALS GOAT.

A large, long-haired breed, which derives its name from its peculiar colour, the fore part of the body being black and the hinder part white. These goats are good milkers.

is found in the high mountains ofUpper Egypt, and perhaps Morocco. The ABYSSINIAN IBEX is now extinct in the Swissthe country from which it takes its name. The ALPINE IBEX Alps and Tyrol, but survives on the Piedmontese side of Monte Rosa. The ASIATIC IBEX is the finest of the group; its horns have been found to measure 54f inches along the curve. This ibex inhabits the mountain-ranges of Central Asia, from the Altai to the Himalaya, and the Himalaya as far as the source of the Ganges. is the great preserver of the ALPINE IBEX, and has succeeded where The King of Italy the nobles of the Tyrol have failed. The animals are shot by driving them, the drivers being expert mountaineers. The way in which the ibex come down the passes and over the precipices is simply astonishing. One writer lately saw them springing down perpendicular heights of off with their40 feet, or descending " chimneys " in the mountain-face by simply cannoning feet from side to side. Young ibex can be tamed with ease, the only drawback to their maintenance being the impossibility of confining them. They will spring on to the roof of

The Sheep and Goats 235

a house, and spend the day there by preference, though allowed the run of all the premises. The kids are generally two in number; they are born in June.

The ibex was long one of the chief objects of the Alpine hunter. The Emperor Maximilian had a preserve of them in the Tyrol mountains near the Aachen Sea; these he shot with a cross-bow when they were driven down the mountains. Sometimes they were forced across the lake. A picture in his private hunting-book shows the Emperor assisting to catch one in a net from a boat. He notes that he once shot an ibex at a distance of 200 yards with a cross-bow, after one of his companions had missed it with a gun, or “fire-tube.” When away on an expedition in Holland, he wrote a letter to the wife of one of the most noted ibex-poachers

on his domain, promising her a silk dress if

she could induce her husband to let the animals alone. In the Himalaya the chief foes of the ibex are the snow-leopard and wild dog.

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