Varieties of Goats. 2 1 



berg, the Langensalzaer or Thuringian, the Schwarzwald, 

 and the Hartz Mountain goat. Prof. Anderegg, a 

 Swiss authority, credits his own country alone with pos- 

 sessing no fewer than sixteen breeds ; but as he treats as 

 one of these the Appenzeller, which is barely a sub- 

 variety,^" it may be assumed that other of his so-called 

 breeds are but local varieties. All recognised authorities 

 agree that there is, with but slight modification, a common 

 type of goat met with all over Europe, and of late years 

 in America and Australia. This common breed has been 

 crossed in certain countries or districts with imported stock 

 from other countries ; or specimens showing some special 

 feature or colour have been selected and bred for a certain 

 period until a fixed type has been established, by which 

 time the animal has received the name of the district or 

 one suggested by its markings. Thus we find the Schwarz- 

 hals, meaning " black neck," which has now developed 

 into a breed, and more recently trie " Coublanc " or " Cou- 

 clair " of Crepin, a variety of Alpine which, as its name 

 implies, has a " white or light-coloured " neck. As a 

 recent and remarkable illustration of a nominal " breed " 

 we have the " American Goat." There are no goats indi- 

 genous to the United States, and until a few years ago there 

 were but few of these animals in that part of the American 

 continent. But interest in this class of stock having been 

 evoked, presumably through the circulation of English 

 literature on the utility of the goat and its increasing , 

 popularity in this country, the subject has been taken up 

 in the last few years in the States in that go-ahead, enthu- 

 siastic manner so characteristic of Americans, and we now 

 read in Thompson's " Information Concerning the Milch 

 Goats," published by the Bureau of Animal Industry at 

 Washington in 1905, that " the American goat is a name 



* Another Swiss authority says it is a smaller Saanen, 



