Few animals, when properly treated, are more useful to man ; and though it never can answer to breed the goat in districts which will carry sheep, in rocky and woody countries it is invaluable. Thu manufactures from the hair have been alluded to. The pillow of goats' hair that supported the head of the image with which Michel deceived the messengera of Saul when he sought David's life (1 Sam. xix. 13-16) will occur to every one ; nud Pennant thinks that the variety which furnished it was the goat of Angora. In the days of wigs, the hair of the common Domestic Goats of this country was in high request, and the whitest were made of it. The best hair for this purpose was selected from that which grew on the haunches, where it is longest and thickest. In Pennant's time a good skin, well haired, was sold for a guinea, though a skin of bad hue, and so yellow as to baffle the barber's skill to bleach, did not fetch above eighteen pence or two shillings. Goats' hair is at present used in the manu facture of wigs for the dignitaries of the church, and the members of the bar and the bench. The skin, particularly that of the kid, is of high importance to the glove manufacturer ; it is also said to take a dye better than most others. The horns are useful for knife-handles; and the suet, it is alleged, makes candles far superior in whiteness and goodness to those made from that of the sheep or the ox, and, according to Pennant, brings a much greater price in the market. The flesh of the kid is good. " The haunches of the goat," writes the author last quoted, "are frequently salted and dried, and supply all the uses of bacon ; this by the natives is called C6ch yr wden, or hung venison. The meat of a castrated goat of six or seven years old (which is called Hyfr) is reckoned the best ; being generally very sweet and fat This makes an excellent pasty, goes under the name of rock-venison, and is little inferior to that of the deer." The medical properties of goats' milk and whey have been highly extolled, and the cheese is much valued in some mountainous countries.
The odour of the Goat, strong at all times, becomes insufferably powerful in the rutting season (from the beginning of September to November), but this pungent scent is not supposed to be unwhole Boma ; and horses aro said to be refreshed by it, whence the animal is frequently to be seen about stables. The female brings forth from the latter end of February to the latter end of April, after a gestation of four months and a half, generally two but sometimes throe and even four young. The activity with which these animals will securely bound from rock to rock, and the unshaken firmness with which they will fix themselves on the edge of the highest rrecipices, are wonder ful. Pennant says that when two are yoked together, as was frequently practised, they will, as if by consent, take large and hazardous leaps, and yet so time their mutual efforts as rarely to miscarry in the nttempt. Nicholas liaaselgren in his 'Swedish Pan' ('Arncen. Acad.') states that goats eat 449 ;dente and refuse 126. The seine author states that though they will eat greedily and safely long-leaved water-hemlock, monkshood kills them. Their favourite food consists of the tops, tendrils, and flowers of mountain shrubs and of aromatic herbs; to this delicate diet was supposed to be owing the salubrity of the milk. The blood was supposed to have its heeling properties also : that of a be-goat dried is mentioned by Pennant as a great recipe in some families for the pleurisy and inflammatory disorders, and is noticed in Dr. Mead's '31onita Medics.' As an enemy to the vine it was sacrificed to Bacchus ; and the subject is prettily touched in many epigrams and verses, both Greek and Latin. The elegant lines of Ovid beginning " Rode caper vitem" are familiar to scholars. In that dark and melancholy time when modern witchcraft was supposed to be rife, and when the very absurdity of the alleged facts seems to have sharpened the belief of the credulous, and increased their eager ness to shed innocent blood, the Goat figures not only as the conveyance on which the witches flew through the air to their diabolical festivals, but as the shape in which Satan himself often exhibited his person to his votaries.
There is no doubt that the Domestic Goat will breed with the Sheep. F. Cuvier states that the mule which is the result of the connection participates in the nature of its parents, and is fruitful, but repro duces with difficulty. " I have had," mays this zoologist, "a similar female mule, which in its form inclined to the sheep, while it leant to the she-goat in its gait and in its hair (par see formes tenoit du mouton, et de la chAvre par see allures et see polls); it did not couple till the third year with a goat, and was fruitful." During a visit to Rhenish Germany in the autumn of 1837 Mr. Ogilby learned from Professor Cretzachmar, the well-know editor of the mammalogiesl part of Dr. Rfippell's first Atlas,' the success of an experiment which the professor had been carrying on for some years in the neighbourhood of Frankfort-on-the-31ain, to ascertain the possibility of procuring a cross between the Cashmere Goat and the Saxon Merino Sheep. With this intention Protease's. Cretzschmar had two or three years ago procured a large Cashmere buck, which was put into a stable with twelve 31erino ewes. For two seasons however his hopes were disappointed, and it was not till the season of 1836 that the desired union took place. During the spring of that year the sheep very freely took the buck, and produced fine healthy lambs, which were, when Mr. Ogilby obtained his information, rather better than a year old. They were kept in a large stable with a number of pure Merinos, which is the usual mode of treating these valuable animals in that part of Germany, where the lead is all under the plough, and there are neither sheep nor grazing farina; and so closely did they resemble the pure Saxon breed, that it was impossible to perceive any difference in their external characters.
The species of the genera of Capreie in the British Museum Catalogue are as follows :— /femitragsts Jemlaicus, the JhAral or Tehr. This animal inhabits the loftiest mountains of India.
lianas Warryato, the Warryato or Jungle Kemas. It is a native of India, and has been called the Wild Sheep of Tennasserim.
./Egoeeros Pyrenaiea, the Pyreiman Tur. It is a native of the Pyre nees, and is regarded by some as a variety of the Ibex.
Caueasica, the Tur, or Zac. It inhabits the Caucasus, and is sometimes called the Caucasian Ibex.
Capra lbex, the Ibex, or Stein-Bac. This animal is a native of the European Alps.
C. the Tek or Takija. It is a native of Siberia, and is fro ' quently referred to the Ibex.
C. llimalayana, the Sakeen or Skyn. It is also called the Himalaya Ibex. Dr. Gray observes that this is not probably distinct from Ibex (Capra) Sibiriea.
C. (?) lterieornis, the Smooth-Horned Ibex. It is probably a hybrid. C. Nubian, the I3eden, or Jade. It is an inhabitant of Egypt, Arabia, and Crete.
C. Valk, the Walie. A specimen is in the Frankfort Museum. Hireus Sgagrzts, the Goat.
Fossil remains of the Goat have been found at Walton in Essex. Professor Owen says, on this discovery :—" Whether the Capra "Egagrus (Ilireus "Egagrus) or the Capra Ibex should be regarded as the stock of the domesticated goat of Europe has long been a question amongst naturalists; the weighty arguments which may be drawn from the character of the wild species which was contemporary with the Bos primigenius and Boa longifroes in England is shown by the present fossil to be in favour of Capra ,Egagrus." (Owen, British Fossil Mammals.)