CHAMOIS (chant'l or sha-mwa'). " Nimble as a chamois," we often say when we speak of some feat of agility, for this small goat-like antelope of the mountains of middle and southern Europe is one of the fleetest and most active of creatures. When alarmed it will flee to the most inaccessible places by a series of prodigious leaps, across chasms and up or down the face of almost perpendicular cliffs. The sole of its hoof is slightly depressed below the outer margin, thus enabling it to get a foothold on the slightest projection.
Chamois live in herds of 20 or 30 and their senses are so acute that they are among the hardest of animals to hunt. When feeding they post a sentinel, who warns of the approach of danger by stamping and making a whistling noise. Chamois-hunting used to be a favorite pursuit in the Swiss Alps, but the animal is now rare and is protected by law.
It dislikes warm weather, ascending in summer to the regions of perpetual snow and only coming down to the forests in winter. Under its coat of coarse reddish-brown hair a thick under-fur grows in the winter time. Its slender body is about three feet long, and two and a half feet high at the shoulders, with a short black tail. From the forehead rises almost vertically a pair of slender black horns six to eight inches long, which hook back at the top.
The fine soft leather known as "shammy" was originally made from chamois-skin, though most of the skins now sold under that name are sheep-skin.
Scientific name, Rupicapra tragus. The chamois is the only species of its genus and is readily distinguished from all other ruminants by its vertical backwardly hooked black horns, which are common to male and female, although smaller in the latter.