140 HABITS OF IBEX. 



knotted horns of the ibex are well known. But they are 

 often misrepresented in drawings of the animal as sweeping 

 high over the back, instead of merely curving over the shoul- 

 ders 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 sometimes 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 herbage, 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 moun- 

 tain-sides. 



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

 scared away by firing, probably from their being so accustomed 

 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 rut- 

 ting 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 decrease in their numbers 

 on the more sequestered hunting-grounds ; for they are very 



