Mountain- Goat (Capva caucasica, GiihL). 455 



that to the west of Elbruz, therefore, throughout the Kuban 

 mountains, this species never occurs ; but here lives Capra 

 caucasica, Giild. On the other hand, in the mountains at 

 the sources of the Terek, Ardon, and on Kazbek I never saw 

 Capra caucasica, but only Capra Pallasii. That Capra 

 caucasica never inhabits this region I became convinced from 

 the following circumstance : — 



In 1879, while travelling on the Upper Ardon, I decided 

 on visiting the Tsehya glacier, whence issues the Tsehya 

 rivulet, a left tributary of the Ardon. [The author then pro- 

 ceeds to describe his coming across a pile of votive offerings 

 on one of the passes, brought by the inhabitants to propitiate 

 their deity, and containing a large number of goats' horns, 

 which on examination proved all to belong to Capra Pal- 

 lasii, and not a single one among several hundred to Capra 

 caucasica, Giild.*] 



The third species, Hircus cegagrus, is rarely met with on the 

 northern slope of the principal Caucasus range, in the moun- 

 tains of Kuban never. Neither did I see it in the Terek 

 region ; it is said, however, that it inhabits the eastern part 

 of the Terek region. As to Daghestan I cannot be positive, 

 for my own observations have not extended to that country. 



C. caucasica invariably selects for its habitat places remote 

 from human dwellings. On the mountains surrounding Great 

 Karachai, rising to eleven and a half thousand feet above sea- 

 level, it does not exist, owing to the proximity of inhabited 

 places. The same may be said of the ranges on either side 

 of the Teberdintsi encampments ; there, in two places (Hida 

 and Hutu), they are sufficiently numerous, but at some dis- 

 tance from human habitations. The case is quite different in 

 the mountains at the sources of the Zelenchuk, Urup, and 

 Laba, where, for 100 miles, there is literally no population, 

 and which are visited only in the summer by the mountaineer 

 shepherds with their flocks. Though the shepherds are 

 nearly all hunters, the summer is so short that they cannot 

 obtain many of the animals ; hence, even at the present day, 

 the wild goat abounds in these parts. All kinds of game, 

 however, are plentiful here ; while travelling in the summer 

 of 1878, I saw almost daily bears, reindeer, and dozens of 

 deer and goats. Though Elbruz is not so remote from inha- 

 bited parts, yet it possesses on its slopes endless labyrinths of 



* The author's own observations led him to conchide that the limits 

 of the distribution of both kinds are defined by tlie high spur of the main 

 range on which stand two of the loftiest summits of the Caucasus — Dykh- 

 lau and Kaslitan-tau. East of this range is Capra I'allasii, Kouill., and 

 west of it L'upra caucasica, Giild. 



