()menu (' Spit. Nat.,' ed. 13) gives Xgagrua as the first species of the genus Capra, and it is followed by Ilircus. Cuvier, in both editions, considers the l'aseng ..Egagrua) to be the parent-stock of all the varieties of the domestic goat. He adverts to the Paseng as inhabiting the mountains of Persia in troops, and to the Oriental Bezoar as a concretion found in its intestines. Fischer speaks of the rEgagrus as being, without doubt, the parent of our Domestic Goat. Whilst upon this inquiry we must not omit the Jemlah Goat Jemlaica, of Hamilton Smith), which is said to inhabit the district of Jemlah, between the sources of the Sargew and the Sampoo that is, resembles•the ordinary types of the tame races than any wild species yet discovered.
" No animal," says Pennant, "seems so subject to varieties (the dog excepted) as the Goat ; " nor did its multitudinous transfigurations escape Pliny (lib. viii., c. 53). Cuvier observes that the Domestic Goat, Capra Hireus, varies infinitely in stature, colour, length, and fineness of the hair, and in size and even number of the horns. The goats of Angora, in Cappadocia, with their soft and silky hair, and those Tibet, whose delicate wool is manufactured into the shawls (cache mires) so highly prized by the French beauties, are especially alluded to by him. To enumerate all the varieties would be to exceed our limits. The Angora Goat, which inhabits the tract that surrounds Angora and Beibazar, in Asiatic Turkey, where the goatherds bestow much care on their flocks, frequently combing and washing them, loses, it appears, the delicacy of its hairy covering when exposed to a change of climate and pasture ; and Pennant hints his suspicions that the design of the Baron Alstroemer, a patriotic Swede, who imported some iuto his own country to propagate the breed for the sake of their hair, turned out fruitless. A spirited attempt to acclimatise the Cashmere Goat was made by an English gentleman, Mr. Towers, some years ago. The Cashmere Goats, which lived some time in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, and at the farm on Kingston-Hill, certainly did not appear to have suffered in the fineness of their coats ; but it is one thing to keep an imported individual by care and attention in the same state, and another to carry on the breed from generation to generation in its pristine beauty, under a different sky and on a strange pasture. We have indeed been informed that the flock of Mr. Towers amounted to about forty, and that the shawls made from the produce of their hides were excellent. One of these shawls was presented to Queen Adelaide. The importance of this manufacture to the people of Cashmere may be estimated from the alleged fact that 16,000 looms are there in constant work, each loom giving employment to three men, the annual sale being calculated at 30,000 shams. A preference is given to the wool of Tibet, and 24 pounds weight of the best of it is said to sell at Cashmere for 20 rupees. The wool is spun by women, and coloured afterwards. It appears also, from a book quoted in the ' Naturalist's Library' (`Rumi nardia,' part 2, by Sir William Jardine), that a fine shawl, with a pattern all over it., takes nearly a year in making. The persons employed sit on a bench at the frame ; sometimes four people at each, but if the shawl is a plain one, only two. The borders are marked with wooden needles, there being a separate needle for each colour, and the rough part of the shawl is uppermost while it is in progress of manufacture. A Tartar half-breed, having been found to thrive well
in a colder climate, has been introduced into France, not without success. The Cashmeres however which are brought from tho kingdom of that name are the shawls in high request, and-those who are curious in such articles should remember that there are in India several other goats besides the true Cashmere breed whose wool is employed for the same purpose.
The Jaal Goat, Capra Jaela (Capra Nuhiana, Gray), is found in the mountains of Abyseinia, Upper Egypt, and Mount Sinai.
says Colonel Smith, the most elevated range of Central Asia, forming the nucleus between the western and south-eastern branches of the Himalaya Mountains. This animal appears to be the same as the Jharal of the•Nepaulese, Capra Jk4ral (Hemitragus Jentlakaa, Gray,) described by Mr. Hodgson (' Zool. l'roc.,' 1834), from a fine male specimen kept in his garden at Nepaul. He states that the Jhliral is found wild in the Kachar region, in small flocks, or solitarily, and gives its character as bold, capricious, wanton, eminently ecansotial, pugnacious, and easily tamed and acclimatised in foreign parts. He remarks that the Jtiliral has a close affinity, by the character of the horns, to the Alpine Xgayri and still more nearly, in other respects, to Capra Jemlaica. It differs, he observes, from the former by the less volume of the horns, by their smooth anterior edge, and by the absence of the heard ; from the latter, by the horns being much less compressed, not turned inwards at the points, nor nodose. Ile adds, that the Jhitral breeds with the Domestic Goat, and more nearly The Syrian Goat, with its excessively long ears, which is plentiful in the East, and, according to Pennant, supplies Aleppo with milk, is worthy of especial notice, as well as the Dwarf African, with its two hairy wattles under the chin, and the pretty little Whidaw Goat.. LieutenautsColonel Sykes, in his 'Catalogue of the 31aninutlia, obtained by him in Dukhun (Deccan), notices Capra 'firers*, Linn.: Bukee, of the 3111irattast. The goats is Dukhun are gaunt, stand high on their legs, have the sides much compressed, and are covered with long shaggy hair, which in most is black. Ears nearly pendent. Irides ochrey-yellow or reddish-yellow. Tail always carried erect in movement Pennant state. that the Domestic Goat (Capra llircus), inhabits most parts of the world, either native or naturalised, and that it bears all extremes of weather, being found in Europe as high as Wardhuys in Norway, where they breed and run out the whole year ; but in winter only have, during night, the shelter of hovels. In that season they feed on moss and the bark of fir-trees, and even on the logs cut for fuel. Pennant quotes Dr. Solander as authority to show that in Norway and West Bothnia their skins formed an article of commerce, and says that these animals thrive equally well in the hottest part of Africa and in India and its islands. It is not, he adds, a native of the New World, having been introduced there first by the discoverers of that continent In Britain the Domestic Goat is become comparatively rare, and even in its strong hold, Wales, it is no longer plentiful. In South Wales a goat is seldom seen, but there are still some wild ones in Ohunorganshire. Their flourishing condition in the Principality at one time may be imagined from the size of the horns of the Cambrian he-goat mentioned by Pennant ; they were 3 feet 2 inches long, and measured 3 feet from tip to tip.