MALE, IMPROVED TYPE OF MILK GOAT 



The greatest development of goats for milk has taken place in Switzerland, where the two 

 famous breeds, Toggenburg and Saanen, were produced. The photograph of Toggenburg 

 Bill No. 442 shows a typical buck of the former breed. Good does of this breed will 

 produce several quarts of rich milk daily, while one owned in California has set a world 

 record with a daily production of six quarts — a record which thousands of cows in the 

 United States fail" to attain. Photograph from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

 (Fig. 15.) 



thence. American) domesticated goats. 

 This is variously known as the Bezoar,- 

 Pasang^ or Grecian Ibex, while the 

 zoologists have an even greater range of 

 synonyms, Capra hircus aegagrus being 

 now the most widely accepted technical 

 name. 



THE PASANG AT HOME 



Once common throughout Greece and 

 Asia Minor, as is shown by its mention 

 in Homer, the Pasang has now been 



2 Bezoar is properly the name of a product in high repute among medieval medical men; it is a 

 compound of bile and rosin, which forms a concretion in the stomach of the goat, and thence gave 

 its name to the species from which it was most often obtained. The name is properly pa-zahr, 

 from pao, to purify, and zahr, poison, and these "stones" were believed to have the power to draw 

 poison from the bite of a snake, the sting of a scorpion, etc. There is still some commerce in them 

 in India and other parts of the orient. Needless to say, they are valueless for medicinal purposes; 

 and they are so easily counterfeited by a compound of pipe-clay and ox-gall that the market for 

 them is in a bad state. 



' Pasang means "rock-footed" and is supposed to be the Persian designation of this species; but 

 as a fact it appears nowadays to be called merely boz-i-kohi, "mountain goat." 



521 



crowded back, although it still lives on 

 a few of the Mediterranean islands, 

 notably on the slopes of Mount Ida in 

 Crete. Its habitat today may be said 

 to be Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchi- 

 stan, although it is by no means 

 extinct in the mountains of Asia Minor. 

 The slender, graceful animal, whose 

 height at the shotilder is approximately 

 three feet, is well shown in the accom- 

 panying drawing (Fig. 14). The general 

 ground color of the upper parts is 



