THE IBEXES 67 



knees. The horns bend backwards in a semicircular curve, and in 

 front are keeled and jagged. In the females the horns are much 

 smaller, and curve back only slightly, and there is no beard or collar. 

 The height of the male is about a yard at the shoulder. The 

 natural haunt of the Wild Goat is among crags, and it goes in herds ; 

 it is prolific, often producing two kids at a birth, as it so frequently 

 does in domestication. Near Quetta, where it reaches the domain of 

 the Markhor, hybrids between the two animals have been obtained. 

 No animals run wild more readily than Goats, which have always 

 retained much of their original agility and intelligence, and so it 

 comes to pass that in many places far removed from the haunts of 

 the original animal there are Wild Goats which originally came there 

 as the dependants of man, since the Goat can thrive under a greater 

 range of climate and conditions than any other domestic animal, and 

 hence has been carried almost everywhere. 



THE IBEXES 



WHAT may be called the typical Ibexes, as distinguished from the 

 Wild Goat, have similar backwardly curving horns, but the front edge 

 of these is flat and more or less broad, not a knife-edge as in the 

 " Persian Ibex." It is broken up by knots or lumps at regular 

 intervals. The best known nowadays is the Asiatic Ibex (Capra 

 sibiricd), which ranges through the mountains from the Altai to the 

 Himalayas ; it is a magnificent animal, as big as the Markhor, and 

 bears horns which may be four feet long. The coat is of a uniform 

 pale brown, with dark streaks down the back and legs, becoming nearly 

 white in winter, and with a dark chin-beard in the male. There is a 

 thick under-coat, and this hardy animal cares little about cold, keeping 

 at high levels close up to the snow at all times of the year. 



It is much hunted by Dholes and the Snow Leopard, and also 

 persecuted by man, both by the local natives and by European sports- 

 men. Such persecution in time past has now almost exterminated 

 the European Ibex (Capra ibex) or Steinbock of the Alps, an almost 

 identical but smaller horned species, now only to be found in a few 

 valleys in the Italian Alps. Another Ibex (Capra vali] is also found 



