The White Goat 243 



some shade, here and there, that dulls his total 

 sheen. This I conceive to be error. Age, it is 

 possible, may bring a few dark hairs to the white 

 goat. But I should wish to be very sure about 

 this before I asserted it. The sum of my experi- 

 ence is, that first I killed some plainly old male 

 goats (they were off by themselves, no longer 

 with the herd), and of these the coats were 

 dingy; that presently I found a plainly younger 

 male goat (he was lighter in weight and his 

 horns and hoofs showed less wear), and his coat 

 was spotless ; and that finally I found the coat of 

 a kid born that same year to be equally spotless. 

 What is the inference almost the conclusion ? 

 Is it not that in the older goats the color was 

 discoloration, from causes external ; that by nature 

 the goat is perfectly white ; and that the books 

 have gone on reproducing an original mistake 

 which grew from some writer's having seen only 

 goats that were weather-stained ? Oh, the repro- 

 duction of error ! The way one man's inaccurate 

 statement is blandly copied down by the next 

 man, and verification shirked at every turn ! 

 Why will they do it, these little scientific folk ? 

 For the great ones never do. The great ones 

 verify, or else, when they come to a hole in their 



