Origin and Early History. 7 



tivement plus rare q/ie le mouton. Elle est rare du mains 

 dans les sepultures de V age de la plerre de la Vestergot- 

 lande."* 



These facts are entirely in keeping with Uie suspicions 

 hinted at above, and with the view that our domestic 

 animals, though coming in the ultimate resort from the 

 East, did not reach the regions north of the Alps directly 

 from the East, but only by passing northwards from the 

 Greek and Italian peninsulas. For the goat, as has been 

 repeatedly observed from the time of Aristotle (" Hist. 

 An." ix. 4) down to the present, bears cold less well than 

 the .sheep, whilst every traveller in sunburnt barren 

 countries may observe with gratitude and wonder what 

 copious supplies of milk are obtained from it, often off but 

 limited areas in these surroundings, and from but shrubs 

 and weeds. 



The goat possesses certain advantages over the sheep 

 as a domestic animal in " a barren and dry land where 

 no water is," but in a palustrine or lacustrine district it 

 possesses none. And I submit, therefore, that the abund- 

 ance of it in the Swiss lake-dwellings can be reasonably 

 explained by supposing that it was carried thither by a 

 people or tribe migrating northwards from the Mediter- 

 ranean countries. (" British Barrows," Green well and 

 Rolleston. Appendix, pp. 740-1, Note.) 



The wild goat of the East was doubtless in very early 

 ages domesticated and made subservient to the wants of 

 man ; and in course of time, as the inhabitants migrated 

 westerly,- taking their live stock with them, the goat was 

 introduced into Europe and other countries. In the East, 

 however, was its original home, and especially in many- 

 districts of Persia, where it is now found in a great range 



* "The goat (Capra hircus) appears to have been in its primitive 

 state scarcer than the sheep. It is rare at least in the sepultures of 

 the stone-age of West Gothland." 



