DOMESTIC GOATS.
It is probable that the native Asiatic goats were among the first animals brought under the subjection of man, and there is no doubt that the main stock of those now in domestication was derived from the Persian pasang (see above). They must have been of peculiar value to the early nomadic men of Southeastern Asia, since they could pasture on the scanty herbage and bushes of the rocky mountains and plateaus, and move anywhere their masters went with even greater facility, conditions which domestic sheep could not well endure.
The varieties of the domestic goat are too many for treatment here, where only the most important can be mentioned. Those of Europe present many diversitie4 of coat and form of horns, and distinguishable breeds are found in Ireland, Wales, and Norway, but no kind has the pendulous ears frequently seen in Asia, except a cream-colored breed peculiar to the island of Malta, whose ears hang below the jaw. This goat and some Spanish breeds are frequently hornless. More distinctive breeds exist south and east of the Mediterranean. Thus the 'guinea' goats, kept in enormous flocks by the natives of the Sudan and of the Niger Valley, are rather small, short-legged, short-haired, and usually dark in color, black and red prevailing. The
horns are only three or four inches long, and curve forward at their tips; and the black beard is continued downward to spread over the shoul ders and fore legs, suggesting some possible an cestral cross with the aoudad (q.v.). The Nile Valley and Egypt have a different goat, in which the legs and horns are longer; the profile is very convex, the horns crumpled, and often absent, and there is no beard. The short coat is usually reddish or bluish gray, more or less spotted, and the pendent ears are about as long as the head, flat, and round at the ends. The goats of Syria, Turkey, and Southwestern Asia, on the other hand, are large and tall, with the hair long, black, and silky, prominent curving horns, a small beard in both sexes, and the ears hanging for half their length below the jaw. These are some times called mamber or Kurd goats, and are the common stock of the country. In Asia Minor, however, there has existed, from immemorial times, a remarkable breed known as mohair or Angora goats, which merit particular descrip tion, since lately they have been sedulously culti vated in various other countries, including South Africa and the United States.