THE GAZELL E S. ^ 25 



ftrike the rock with their feet, three or four times, to ftop^the velocity 

 of their motion j and, when arrived on their bafe below, are at once 

 fixed and fecure. When jumping in this manner, they feem rather to 

 have wings than legs. Their hinder legs are rather longer than their 

 fore-legs, and bend fo that, when they defcend upon them., they break 

 the force of the fall. Hunting the cham.ois is very laborious, and diffi- 

 cult. The ufual way is to hide behind the clefts of rooks and flioot 

 them. Dogs are quite ufelefs in this chace, as they rather alarm than 

 overtake. Nor is it without dans:er to men : for often when the 

 animal finds itfelf over-prefied, it drives at the hunter with its head, and 

 tumbles him down the neighbouring precipice, unlefs he has time to 

 lie down, and let the chamois pafs over him. This animal cannot go 

 upon ice when fmooth ; but if there be the leaft inequalities on its fur- 

 face, it bounds along, and evades purfuit. 



Such are the quadrupeds that belong to the goat kind. It is hard to 

 difcover v/here the fheep ends and the goaf begins; ftill harder to de- 

 termine the boundaries between the goat and the deer. But in tranfitions 

 from one kind to another, is generally a middle race, that partakes of 

 each, and can prccifely be referred to neither. Such are the gazelles, 

 properly neither goat nor deer, yet pofleflTing many marks of both. 



THE GAZELLES, 



O R 



ANTELOPES, 



LUCE the goat, have hollow permanent horns, a gall bladder, and 

 feed rather upon fhrubs than pafture. But they refemble the 

 roe-buck in fize and form j in having deep pits under the eyes; 

 in the colour and nature of their hair ; in the bunches upon their 

 legs, which differ in being on the fore-legs in thefe, on the hind- legs 

 in the other. 



They differ from both goat and deer by their horns, which are 

 annulated (or ringed) with longitudinated depreflions running from 

 the bottom to the point ; by having bunches of hair on their fore- 

 Jegs ; and by a ftreak of black, red, or brown, running along 



