48 THE ANTELOPES. 



per day. These also, if introduced into some of the mountainous 

 and barren tracts of this island, might be an useful acquisition. 



THE SYRIAN GOAT 



Differs in nothing from ours, except in its ears, which are 

 pendulous, and from a foot to two feet in length. M. Buffon 

 supposes this to be only a variety of the Angora goat ; from 

 which, however, it differs much more than from the domestic 

 kind. Its horns are short and black ; those of the goat of An- 

 gora are also black, but larger, and very differently turned, pro- 

 ceedingly horizontally from each side of the head, and twisted 

 almost in the form of a screw. The Syrian wants also the fine 

 hair, which renders the Angora breed so estimable. The Syrian 

 goats abound in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and numbers of 

 them are daily driven through the streets of that city, to supply 

 the inhabitants with milk, which they prefer to that of the cow. 



These are the principal varieties of the goat kind, although 

 we might add a number of others, such as the African goat, 

 which is much smaller than the common kind. In America, 

 there is also a small breed of goats, nearly similar to those of 

 Africa, and which, according to Buffon, was transplanted from 

 thence into the new continent. This, indeed, is very probable, 

 as it is certain, that the goat, as well as every other domestic 

 animal, was unknown in America at the time of its discovery by 

 the Spaniards. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE A9IT!SOFZ5S. 



" From rock to rock the swift antelope springs." ANON. 



WE have exhibited to view the principal varieties of the sheep 

 and the goat kind, and the approaches they make towards each 

 other, by continual, and, in some respects, almost imperceptible 

 gradations. Nature, indeed, proceeds in her variations by in- 

 sensible degrees, and a line of distinction can sometimes scarcely 

 be drawn between her varying shades, or a discrimination made 

 between two neighbouring tribes of animal life. Between the 

 sheep and the goat, we have seen the musmon sometimes classed 

 with the former, and sometimes with the latter, and forming the 

 connecting link between the two species, in such a manner, as to 

 render it difficult to determine where the one begins and the 

 other ends ; and to fix the boundaries between the goat and the 



