AFTEE IBEX IN JOUEA 307 



Here I continued my careful spying, but in vain. 

 About three o'clock, on looking through a gap in the 

 cliffs, my attention was attracted by a peculiar cry 

 from a wooded hollow below me, and a doe, repeating 

 the same note, and followed by her kid, sprang on a 

 rock some hundred and fifty yards away. Much as 

 meat was wanted in camp, I could not bring myself 

 to fire. Moreover, I hoped a buck would follow, but 

 none did. The doe leaped down and disappeared? 

 then she crossed a piece of absolutely bare reddish 

 ground, repeating her alarm signal about every 

 minute. Although I had this to guide me, and my 

 glass open and ready in my hand, I failed to catch 

 sight of the goats again. This shows the difficulty 

 of finding these animals before they themselves see 

 the stalker. 



The fact that these goats have an alarm-note in 

 itself marks a distinction between them and the ibex 

 of Antimilo. I have fired some five or six times at 

 members of a herd on the latter island, and alarmed, 

 or seen them alarmed, in other ways quite as often, 

 and have also fired at, or alarmed, single animals, but 

 never, I am positive, heard any sound from any of 

 them. 



The cry of the Joura goat is difficult to describe : 

 though distinctly animal in its nature, it in a con- 

 siderable degree resembles the note of some kind of 

 wild goose, heard at considerable distance. It also 

 suggests the sound produced by the mechanically- 

 squeaking dogs of our childhood : while the way the 

 animal repeated it from time to time in moving along 

 recalled the action of an alarmed roebuck. 



After this I saw nothing more : indeed the heavy 

 snow-clouds made it grow dark very early. V., who 



