Monntain-Goat (Capra caucasicaj Giild.). 457 



times it is a beautiful sight to see an old male with enormous 

 horns mount to some pinnacle of rock, and take a survey over 

 the surrounding hills. The night is passed in the upper 

 valleys near the forests, when the animals are exclusively 

 engaged in feeding; but at the first streaks of dawn they 

 renew their ascent of the cliffs. During the daytime they 

 hardly feed at all, but are more usually seen reposing on the 

 glacier, on snow or bare rocks entirely devoid of vegetation, 

 some standing, others lying at full length, chewing the cud, 

 while a few are asleep. 



There is hardly any animal that can surpass the wild goat 

 in climbing the most formidable parts of the mountains. It 

 seems that only the loftiest precipices are inaccessible to it. 

 An old native hunter once compared it with the eagle^ by 

 which he evidently meant that the wild goat can, by means 

 of its feet, ascend many of those crags to which the eagle soars 

 on wing. 



The voice of the Caucasian Mountain-Groat resembles the 

 whistle of the deer, though more prolonged. The animal 

 utters it when alarmed, or, if danger be near, sometimes to 

 warn its companions of the presence of an aggressor. It also 

 bleats like the domestic goat, but louder, to express anger or 

 alarm. Its senses of seeing and hearing are remarkably well 

 developed, while its powers of scent are extraordinary. The 

 hunter must stalk it from the leeward side, for any attempt to 

 approach from the windward is at once detected, and the wary 

 animal is off in an instant. Of course the pure fresh moun- 

 tain air is greatly in the animal's favour. In point of intel- 

 ligence this goat, like all its congeners, stands relatively high. 

 The natives rank it with man, and I have myself observed 

 how deliberately it acts at critical moments. Thus, if fired 

 at, it will not run at haphazard, but first tries to discover 

 whence the danger proceeds. It also defends itself with much 

 skill from an aggressor. 



Before the approach of winter, these goats are compelled 

 by the deep snows to abandon the mountain summits and re- 

 move to lower places, where they are met with in autumn 

 near the border of the forests, and in winter still lower at the 

 bottom of the valleys. It must, however, be remarked that 

 goats never descend so low as the antelopes, for instance, 

 which are met with in winter in the lower belt of forests two 

 and a half or three thousand feet above sea-level. In winter 

 the goats feed on the foliage of various plants, and probably 

 chieHy on lichens, which cover in large quantities the trunks 

 and branches of the forest trees ; in summer they eat various 

 alpine plants. 



