Hayfs.] 410 [March 18, 



species formed by Pallas from a cranium only, received by Gmelin 

 from the mountains of the north of Persia, and have shown that 

 naturalists had adopted this species as the source of the domestic goat 

 ■without resting the assertion upon any proof. The comparison by M. 

 Brandt in 1848 of a collection of skulls and horns obtained by M. 

 TchihatchefF in the Cappadocian Taurus, with the original cranium 

 which served Pallas for the type of his species, has enabled that nat- 

 lu'alist, for the first time, to demonstrate positively the derivation of 

 our domestic goat from Capra (Cfjrncjus. M. Brandt asserts that 

 it results from his labors that this species "is incontestably and exclu- 

 sively the source of the domestic goat of Europe" and gives the fol- 

 lowing arguments in support of this assertion : — 



1. "The Capra a'(jragm has all the exterior forms and all the pro- 

 portions of the domestic goat." 



2. "It resembles it very much in the general as well as local 

 distribution of its colors." 



3. "It approaches the domestic goat more than any other species 

 in the configui-ation of its horns, a configuration which plays so im- 

 portant a part in the characteristics of the wild species." 



4. "It presents the same agreement with the domestic goat in 

 respect to the cranium. Finally, it is found in the moiuitains of the 

 countries, especially Mesopotamia, inhabited by the peojile of anticjuity, 

 (the Israelites, Assyrians, etc.,) which have furnished the most ancient 

 information respecting the raising of the goat."* 



The establishment of the ijerfect identity of the domestic goat with 

 a wild species is a negative argument of much force for the exclusion 

 from the same source of an animal so widely differing as the Angora 

 goat. A positive argument of equal weight is the recent observation 

 that the Angora goat more nearly resembles another Avild species 

 lately discovered. This species, the Capra Falconeri, is found upon 

 all the mountains of Little Thibet, and upon the high mountains 

 situated between the Indus, the Badukshan and the Indo Kusch. It 

 resembles greatly the domestic goat, from which it differs principally 

 in its magnificent horns, which, near together at the base, are at first 

 arched backwards, and then turn in a spiral inwards, and then over 

 again outwards. They are strongly compressed, triangular and free 

 from knots; their internal face, at first plane, is rounded higher up, 

 whilst their external face is everywhere convex. Although there 

 does not appear to be a development of fleece in this wild species 

 corresponding to that of the Angora goat, M. Sacc, professor in the 

 faculty of sciences at Neuchatel, who has made a special study of the 



* Considerations sur la Capra aegragus de Pallas, souche de la Ch6vre domestique 

 par. J. F. Brandt. Bulletin supr. cit., T. ii., p. 565. 



