272 The White Goat 



your children there for the season, — and this 

 would be the result of a justifiable generalization. 

 The rule is nowise different in genuine science. 

 This new variety of goat has been based upon a 

 single specimen, and only the dried skull at that ! 

 Because the horns were a few inches longer and 

 spread a few inches wider than the average, and 

 because there were certain differences in measure- 

 ment of the jaw, is scarce adequate proof that 

 these variations were not a distortion, congenital 

 or the result of accident. We have seen people 

 with squints and with club-feet ; we have also 

 been to the circus, yet we do not make sub- 

 species for the Kentucky giant and the bearded 

 lady. But that little ache for self-perpetuation, 

 for some sort of permanence in this forgetting 

 world, throbs in many hearts, and since we are 

 all trying to affix our names to something that 

 will hand them down to the succeeding genera- 

 tions, why not tie them to Oreammis and Ovis? 

 And so, reader, you have the pleasing vision of 

 our zoologists, riding down to posterity upon the 

 backs of sundry subspecies of goat and sheep. 



These animals, like all our Western big game, 

 are disappearing. It is not (as the political 

 Western loud-talker has so frequently shouted) 



