446 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
of the ranges where it is found, keeping above the forest (when there_ 
is any), unless driven down by severe weather. In the day-time it 
generally betakes itself to the most inaccessible crags, where it may 
sleep and rest in undisturbed security, merely coming down to the 
grassy feeding grounds in the mornings and evenings. Occasionally, 
in very remote and secluded places, the ibex will stay all day on their 
feeding grounds, but this is not common. In summer, as the snows 
melt, the old males retire to the highest and most unfrequented 
mountains, and it is then generally useless to hunt for them, as they 
have such a vast range, and can find food in places perfectly inaccessible 
toman. The females and young ones may be met with all the year 
round, and often at no very great elevation. 
Ba Although an excessively wary animal, the ibex is usually found on 
such broken ground that, if due care be taken, it is not very difficult 
to obtain a shot. The grand rule, as in all other hill stalking, is to 
keep well above the herd, whose vigilance is chiefly directed beneath 
them. In places where they have been much disturbed, one or two 
of the herd usually keep a sharp look-out while the rest are feeding, 
and on the slightest suspicion of danger the sentries utter a loud 
whistle, which is a signal for a general rush to the nearest rocks, 
Should the sportsman succeed in obtaining a shot before he is observed 
by the ibex, he may often have time to fire several shots before they 
are out of range, as they appear to be completely stupefied and 
confused by the sudden noise, the cause of which they are unable to 
account for if they neither see nor smell their enemy.’ 
Jerdon states that Major Strutt killed in the Balti valley an ibex of a 
rich hair-brown colour, with a yellowish-white saddle in the middle of 
its back, and a dark mesial line ; the head, neck and limbs being of a 
dark sepia brown, with a darker line on the front of the legs; others 
were seen in the same locality by Major Strutt of a still darker colour. 
These seem to be peculiar to Balti; the horns are the same as the 
others. Kinloch remarks that a nearly black male ibex has been shot 
to the north of Iskardo. 
No. 448. CAPRA AGAGRUS, 
The Wild Goat of Asia Minor. 
Native Names.—fasang (male), Boz (female), generally Bos-Pasang, 
Persian (Blanford) ; Kayeck in Asia Minor (Danford). 
Hasitat.—Throughout Asia Minor from the Taurus mountains ; 
through Persia into Sindh and Baluchistan; and in Afghanistan. 
M. Pierre de Tchihatchef, late a distinguished member of the Russian 
Diplomatic Service, and well known as an author and a man of science, 
whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making some time ago in 
