Chapter II. 



Origin and Early History of the Coat.. 



THE goat is classified by naturalists as belonging to the 

 genus Capra, order Ungulata, sub-order Artiodactyla 

 (goats, pigs, sheep, oxen, &c.). There is but little 

 doubt that the numerous varieties of the domestic 

 goat are all descended from the Pasang, or Capra 

 ccgagrus, a species common all through Asia Minor, 

 Persia, and extending even into Scinde. The fossil 

 remains of some species of goat which have been 

 found in the newer Pliocene deposits, as, for instance, 

 at Walton in Essex, seem to corroborate this opinion. 

 ' The jaw and teeth," writes Professor Owen, to whom 

 the fossil remains were entrusted, " agreed in size 

 and configuration with the same parts in the common 

 goat, and also in the sheep ; and the highly interesting 

 question which of these had existed contemporaneously 

 with the mammoth and the rhinoceros was satisfactorily 

 determined by the cranial fragment. In its shape and 

 size, and especially in the character of the cores of the 

 horns w which were two inches in length, subcompressed, 

 pointed, and directed upwards, with a slight bend out- 

 wards and backwards, it closely agreed with the common 

 goat (Capra hircus), and with the short-horned female 

 of the wild goat (Capra cegagrus). In the sheep, the 

 greatest diameter of the horn is across the longitudinal 



