Mountain- Goat (Cnpva caiicasica, Giild.). 459 



who pasture their flocks at the foot of the main range or its 

 liighest spurs. Hardly a day passes without their climbing 

 the crags and glaciers in pursuit of antelope or goats, and 

 they either stalk these up wind, or post themselves in the 

 evening on some lofty eminence, where they await their 

 quarry on its way back from the alpine meadows to the upper 

 regions of the mountains. 



The early autumn is the best time for killing these goats, 

 when agricultural work is over, and the animals begin to de- 

 scend, and are in the best condition. Goats, like all rumi- 

 nants, are fond of salt ; the hunters, aware of this, construct 

 hiding-places near the saline springs, and there slioot these 

 and other animals when they come to drink the salt water or 

 lick the salt. At the sources of the Doiit, I observed that 

 goats readily ate a fine clay powder which settles on the 

 banks of this stream as it issues from the glacier. This 

 powder is nothing but the product of disintegrated fel- 

 spathic rocks, and contains neither common nor other salts 

 soluble in water ; yet it is devoured by antelope and goats in 

 such large quantities as to impart a peculiar colour to their 

 excrements. 



Happily for hunters and naturalists, the wild goat is still so 

 numerous in the Caucasus, that there cannot be any question 

 of its extinction at present. I will again remind the reader 

 that at the sources of the Urup and Laba our party saw every 

 day herds of 10 or 15 head, while on Elbruz I myself saw 

 three herds in one day numbering altogether 70 head*. 



[The author here relates his own experiences in hunting the 

 wild goat, and speaks of various attempts made to domesticate 

 it.] The last time I had occasion to visit the mountains and 

 observe the goats, I convinced myself that to the west of Dykli- 

 tau and Kashtan-tau Capra Pallasti, Kouill., is never met 

 with. The limits of its distribution begin to the east of these 

 mountains, i. e. at the sources of the Cherek and Urukha. 

 It is most probable that that lofty spur of the main chain of 

 the Caucasus, on which rise the highest peaks, Dykh-tau and 

 Kashtan-tau t, is the border-line dividing the range of 

 the two species. From this point C. Pallasii extends across 

 the sources of the Cherek, Urukh, Ardon, Terek, and as far 

 as the Argun, perhaps beyond. At the sources of the last- 

 named river, 0. Pallasii and also Hircus cegagrus {^go- 



* The celebrated hunter Akhiya, who served as guide to the English- 

 men in 1872, to the summit of Elbruz, and astonished them by his extra- 

 ordinary powers of vision and climbing, states that he has killed over 

 2700 of these goats. 



t This range is very lofty, its highest peak being 17,000 feet. 



