ON THE WILD GOATS OF GREECE 395 



curiously illustrated by a reference to Mr Lj^dekker's Wild 

 Oxen, Sheep, and Goats. In this he mentions the legend — it is 

 little more — that the moufflon (Ovis musimon) once existed 

 in Greece. Now in the above-mentioned collection there is a 

 perfect statuette of a moufflon ram 1 This goes a long way to 

 prove what otherwise rests on little more than a tradition, 

 the source of which it is hard to trace. 



Professor Biichner, of St Petersburg, who is a great 

 authority in such matters, has pronounced his opinion that 

 the Joura goat is a domestic goat run wild. That the speci- 

 mens seen by him (at Berlin) were such, there can be no 

 reasonable doubt. Had they been really Joura ibex, the 

 Professor would at once have remarked on the difference 

 between them and Reichenow's picture, which neither re- 

 sembles those I saw in Joura nor that now living in the 

 Zoological Society's Gardens.^ It seems very possible that 

 feral goats were sent to Berlin as Joura ibex, especially when 

 we remember that they exist at Skyro and, till recently at 

 all events, at Skopelos — the two nearest islands with steamer- 

 ports to Joura. Moreover, the possibility of feral goats being 

 actually secured on Joura itself is not to be excluded, for 

 Professor Knotek saw seven domestic goats there in 1896 ; 

 and they have possibly crossed at some time with the ibex — 

 or at any rate run wild. 



Dr Erhardt is said to agree with Professor Biichner, but in 

 his Fauna der Cycladen (page 39) he expresses an opposite 

 opinion, though, curiously enough, he considered the Joura 

 goat to be identical with the Cretan one. He particularly 

 notes — writing, moreover, many years ago — the distinctive 

 shape of the horns of the former, and, I may add, correctly 

 describes a young buck as they are now to be seen there. 



It must be remembered that he was in Greece, though never 

 at Joura. (To make confusion worse confounded, he also de- 

 scribes a feral goat from the other Joura, near Delos.) The 

 peculiar colouring of his Antimilo specimen led him to con- 

 sider it a separate species, to which he gave the name of 

 jEgroceros pictus. This, however, was really attributable 

 to the presence on the island of domestic goats, and the 

 resulting crosses. 



^ Since dead. 



