GOAT 



641 



upon the stomach. Hence consumptive people are 

 not unfreqnently recommended to go to the goat- 

 feeding districts, as a dernier ressort against that, most 

 direful of human maladies. With them, however, it 

 is the whey after cheese or curds have been made, 

 and not the entire milk, which is recommended ; and 

 even then it is probable that the fine air of the goat- 

 country exerts as salutary an influence as the supposed 

 medicine ; but whether this be, or be not the case, 

 is not much worthy of inquiry ; because if valuable 

 life can be saved (and as consumption is a disease of 

 the young, the life of consumptive patients is always 

 valuable), any circumstance that may bring them to 

 the pure air of those cliffy regions, which goats inha- 

 bit, is always worthy of being cherished. 



It is a fact worthy of notice, that the remains of the 

 goat, and also those of the sheep, have not been 

 found in any of the accumulations of fossil animals ; 

 though, with the exception of Australia, which is very 

 peculiar in its zoology, goats are found native in all 

 the more extensive countries of the world. In all 

 regions they inhabit the most wild and inaccessible 

 places ; and yet they seem to have a stronger attach- 

 ment to the human race than almost any other 

 animals ; they are playful and familiar ; and it is highly 

 probable that the goat was among the first animals 

 that man employed in a domestic state. An instance 

 of this is mentioned by a very accurate naturalist, re- 

 lative to the wild goats of the Alps : he and his party 

 landed on a wild and romantic spot on the bank of 

 the lake of Thun, where those animals are numerous, 

 and left comparatively in a state of nature ; but he 

 and his companions had no sooner landed than, these 

 wild goats came bleating about them with their kids, 

 and even entered the boat, and resisted being driven 

 from it. They did this too evidently from mere at- 

 tachment to the travellers, because the pasture was 

 rich, and the said travellers had nothing in the shape 

 of food wherewithal to tempt them, 



The introduction of the goat and the ram into the 

 zodiac by the very earliest astronomers, shows that the 

 people who first cultivated the science of the heavens 

 were familiar with these animals ; and indeed there is 

 reason to suppose that the human race, trom very 

 nearly the dawn of their history, domesticated and 

 found advantage in those animals. The account 

 given of the deluge in the book of Genesis, is too 

 scanty for supplying any adequate materials for na- 

 tural history ; but it is recorded that the ark rested 

 on the tops of the mountains. We have also evidence 

 in Britain, and almost in every country, that the 

 mountain tops were the habitations of men before 

 they took possession of the plains ; and that in those 

 early times the plains were covered with thick forests, 

 inundated with water, or so full of bogs and quag- 

 mires, as not to be fit for human abodes. In many 

 places, both of England and of Scotland, we have 

 evidence of early inhabiting and cultivation upon 

 heights which are now bleak and wasted ; and even 

 the roads and stations of the Romans, though they 

 must be referred to a comparatively recent period of 

 history, are usually found upon the high grounds. In 

 America too, when that country was first discovered 

 by Europeans, the most civilised races of the natives 

 were found upon the mountains ; and generally 

 speaking, when we look at the whole earth, we find 

 that, with the exception of the lines of the shores, and 

 the banks of the larger rivers, the people inhabited 



NAT. HIST. VOL. II. 



the mountains, while the low grounds were abandoned 

 to tangled forests and wild animals. 



This circumstance naturally connects itself with the 

 goat and the sheep as mountaineers, and renders it 

 probable that both of these were domesticated at an 

 earlier period than the ox, which, inhabiting lower 

 down, may not have been brought under the dominion 

 of man until the pastoral life had been partially 

 changed for the agricultural. Accordingly we find 

 that these animals make an important figure in the 

 mythologies of many ancient nations. Pan, which is 

 a symbolical personification of the productive energies 

 of nature, was furnished with the attributes of a goat ; 

 in like manner the Lybian Jupiter was furnished 

 with the horns of a ram. The JEg\, which was 

 equally the breast-plate or shield of Jupiter and of 

 Minerva, was originally nothing but a goafs-skin ; 

 and by the fable of those two divinities, the goat was 

 thus connected with supreme power and supreme 

 wisdom, which shows the estimation in which the 

 character of the animal was held. Under the Jewish 

 rituals the goat was an important animal, and used as 

 the appropriate symbol of atonement in the splendid 

 rites ordained by the Supreme Lawgiver himself. 



The skin of the goat appears to have been early 

 used as an article of clothing ; and the first cloth, or 

 rather felt, which was made by the northern nations, 

 appears to have been chiefly formed of the hair of 

 this animal, mixed with shorter fur, matted together, 

 and stiffened with the gum of trees, so as to be proof 

 not only against the weather, but in a great measure 

 against the weapons of their enemies. This species 

 of garment is very frequently alluded to by the 

 ancient poets and historians. 



The war tunics of the Cimbri, which, in their wars 

 with Marius, are represented as being such strong de- 

 fences, were of this material ; and the Roman auxiliaries 

 had winter dresses of the same, in Britain, and all the 

 other colder provinces of the empire. Even when 

 weaving from spun thread took the place of the more 

 ancient matting, it is highly probable that the long 

 hair of the goat was used in preference to the shorter 

 wool of the sheep. We have further evidence of the 

 early domestication of the goat, in the fact that all 

 Celtic tribes, which are justly regarded as the most 

 ancient races of many parts of Europe, bred and cul- 

 tivated goats long before the introduction of sheep. 

 In the Highlands of Scotland and in Wales, the goat 

 was the original domestic animal ; and in both 

 countries there are many districts called by the name 

 of Gower, which is Celtic for goat, and many families 

 have the same surname, whereas no name of the sheep 

 is used except in cases where the use of it is compa- 

 ratively modern. All these circumstances render the 

 history of the goat a highly interesting one ; but it 

 is long, and the details are hardly fitted for a work 

 like the present, though a volume of great interest 

 might be written on the domestic history of the goat. 



Goats as a genus are distinguished from Antelopes 

 by the bony nucleus, or core of the horns, being, in 

 part at least, cellular, and the cells communicating 

 with the frontal sinuses of the cranium. The horns 

 are more or less angular, or ridged, with transverse 

 knots and wrinkles. Their usual position is upwards 

 and backwards ; they are found on both sexes ; but 

 on the female they are much smaller in size, and more 

 smooth in their surfaces than in the males. The line 

 of the forehead is a little convex ; the eye is very 

 SS 



