3 1 HABITS OF IBEX. 



shoulders as they in reality do. The doe is much smaller 

 than the full-grown buck, and her colour a light-reddish 

 brown. She carries thin stumps of horns, which seldom 

 grow longer than a foot ; whereas those of the buck some- 

 times reach a length of 50 inches or even more, and a 

 girth of quite 10 inches at the base. A crease round the 

 horn denotes its yearly growth, not the knobs on its anterior 

 surface, as is often supposed. 



From what I have seen and heard of ibex, their sense 

 of smell is not nearly so acute as their sight. But they 

 seldom apprehend danger from above, so it is best to 

 approach them, if possible, from that direction. During 

 the spring and early summer, they may be seen feeding 

 at almost any time of day, on the green patches of herb- 

 age, among the higher crags and snow-fields, only taking 

 a siesta for a few hours at a time. In the dead of winter 

 they are found much lower on the mountain-sides. 



Provided they do not see the hunter, they are not always 

 scared away by firing, probably from their being so accus- 

 tomed to hearing the noise of falling rocks and avalanches. 

 And sometimes they get so bewildered by the echoes of a 

 shot, that they give time for several easy chances before 

 making up their minds to be off. If one of them, however, 

 catches only a glimpse of anything suspicious, a warning 

 whistle at once sends off the whole herd, although they 

 often depart very leisurely even after being shot at. 



Ibex sometimes congregate in large numbers, but they 

 are usually found in flocks of from six or seven to twenty 

 or so, the older bucks often herding separately, except 

 during the rutting season. Despite the quantities that are 

 shot, killed by avalanches, and by those terrible foes to all 

 Himalayan game, wild dogs, there appears to be little de- 

 crease in their numbers on the more sequestered hunting- 

 grounds ; for they are very prolific, each doe having as a 

 rule a pair of kids every summer. The villagers some- 

 times train their dogs to hunt them down, when the ibex 



