Mountain Goat 



took the precipice, and crossed its face on juts that did not look as if 

 your hat would hang on them. In this I think they are worse than 

 the mountain sheep, if that is possible. Certainly they do not seem 

 to come down into the high pastures and feed on the grass levels as 

 the sheep will. As we continued I saw a singular looking stone 

 lying on a little ledge some way down the mountain ahead. 1 

 decided it must be a stone, and was going to speak of it, when the 

 stone moved and we crouched in the slanting gravel. ... I climbed 

 or crawled out of sight, keeping any stone or little bush between me 

 and the goat, and so came cautiously to where I could peer over and 

 see the goat lying turned away from me, with his head commanding 

 the valley. He was on a tiny shelf of snow, beside him was one small 

 pine, and below that the rock fell away steeply into the gorge. He 

 looked white, and huge, and strange; and somehow I had a sense of 

 personality about him more vivid than any since I watched my first 

 silver-tip lift a rotten log, and, sitting on his hind legs, make a 

 breakfast on beetles, picking them off the log with one paw." 

 "By eight the next morning," he continues "we had sighted 

 another large solitary billy. But he had seen us down in the path 

 from his ridge. He had come to the edge and was evidently watch- 

 ing the horses. If not quick witted, the goat is certainly wary; and 

 the next time we saw him he had taken himself away down the other 

 side of the mountain, along a spine of rocks where approach was 

 almost impossible. We watched his slow movements through the 

 glass, and were reminded of a bear. He felt safe and was stepping 

 deliberately along, often stopping, often walking up some small point 

 and surveying the scenery. He moved in an easy rolling fashion, and 

 turned his head importantly. Then he lay down in the sun, but saw 

 us on our way to him, and bounced off. We came to the place 

 where he had jumped down sheer twenty feet at least. His hoof- 

 tracks were on the edge, and in the gravel below, the heavy scatter 

 he made in landing; and then, hasty tracks round a corner of rock 

 and no more goat that day." 



Mr. Wister says of the habits of the goat: "It has been stated 

 that in the winter season, like mountain sheep, he descends and comes 

 into the valleys. This does not seem to be the case. He does not 

 depend upon grass, if indeed he eats grass at all. His food seems to 

 Iv chiefly the short, almost lichen-like moss that grows on the faces 

 and at the base of the rocks and between them in the crevices. None 

 of the people in the Methon country spoke of seeing goats come out 



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