336 M. Roulin on Domestic Animals. 



things go on in the usual order ; but if the proper time for de- 

 priving the animal of its fleece is allowed to pass, the wool 

 thickens and becomes matted, and ends with coming off in 

 patches, which leave under them, not a new wool, nor a bare 

 skin in a diseased state, but a short, shining and well-laid hair, 

 very similar to that which the goat assumes in the same cli- 

 mates. In the places where this hair has once appeared, no 

 wool ever grows. 



The goat, although its form is altogether that of a mountain 

 animal, accommodates itself much better to the low and burning- 

 valleys than to the elevated parts of the Cordillera. 



In the chmates which agree with it, it multiplies well, there 

 being commonly two, sometimes three kids, at each birth ; but 

 never six, as some have chosen to assert. Its size is small, but 

 in form it has gained much : its body is more slender, its head 

 more elegant, better placed, and generally less loaded with 

 horns. The agility of this animal, and its propensity for climb- 

 ing and leaping, are also singularly developed. I have often 

 amused myself with seeing the goals in the public place of a 

 village leap more than four feet high upon the cymaise of the 

 pilasters of the church, the projection at the point where they 

 placed their feet being only three inches. They remained in 

 this difficult position for hours together, without any other ap- 

 parent object than that of warming themselves in the sun, which, 

 however, shone as well below as above. 



The most evident sign of domestication in our European geat, 

 the great size of the udder, has entirely disappeared in the Ame- 

 rican goat. 



I have not reckoned the camel among the quadrupeds carried 

 to the New World, because the species has not been preserved 

 there. It has, however, been repeatedly transported from the 

 Canary Islands, but always at the period of great political dis- 

 turbances. Perhaps, in more tranquil times, it might have been 

 got to propagate. The like has happened in the cases of other 

 animals, which for a long time refused to propagate in certain 

 places, and are now as productive there as in other places, as I 

 shall shew in speaking of the domestic fowls. 



The domestic fowls that have been carried to the West In- 



