8 The 'Book of the Coat. 



of climate; it is in Persia, therefore, that we ought 

 perhaps to have the earliest records of the goat, but unfor- 

 tunately nothing historically is known of the early periods 

 of Persia, and it was not till the wars of Alexander and 

 his successors that the Greeks formed any real conception 

 of the position and character of the land from which their 

 ancient and formidable enemies took their name. The 

 word Pdsang is the name of the male of the wild goat, and 

 signifies in Persian "the rock-footed"; the female is 

 called Boz, or Boz-pdsang, though the term Boz is also 

 applied to both sexes of the common domestic goat. 

 (" Zoology of Persia," Blandford, p. 90.) 



It is very probable that the Accadians, or ancient inhabi- 

 tants of the high lands of Elam, from very early periods 

 domesticated the common goat, and that the wild kind 

 existed on the mountains of their own lands and those 

 adjacent. The names given to animals often throw light 

 on the countries originally inhabited by them; the Acca- 

 dians frequently adopted this kind of nomenclature. Thus, 

 one of the names of a " wolf " in the Accadian language 

 denotes " high," implying that the wolf descended into 

 the low lands from the hills of Armenia; the " horse " is 

 " the beast of burden from the East," pointing to Armenia 

 as its early home. There are two or three words for a 

 goat in the same language, one of which appears to denote 

 the animal " with elevated horns," which is well suited to 

 the goat as its figure is shown on the monuments from 

 Assyria. 



One of the Sanskrit names for the he-goat is a/a, that 

 of the she-goat is ajd, with the final vowel long. This 

 word has considerable interest ; it comes from the root #/', 

 " to go," " to drive," " to lead "; its meaning is pre- 

 served in the Greek ayw, and the Latin ago. In the most 

 ancient form of Sanskrit, that of the Vedas, the epithet 

 aja is given to certain deities, as to Indra, Rudra, Agni, 



