NATURAL HISTORY. 183 



selves on board, and offered the English as many goats 

 as they choose to take. At the surprise which the 

 captain shewed at this offer, the negroes observed 

 there were but twelve persons in the island ; that the 

 goats multiplied so fast, that they became troublesome ; 

 and that, far from having any trouble in taking them, 

 they followed them with a kind of obstinacy, like do- 

 mestic animals. 



Goats go five months with young, and bring forth 

 at the beginning of the sixth month. They suckle the 

 young ones for about a month or five weeks ; so that 

 it may be reckoned about six-and-twenty weeks from 

 the time of their coupling till the time that the young 

 kid begins to eat. The goat generally produces one 

 kid, sometimes two, very rarely three, and never more 

 than four ; and she brings forth young, from a year 

 or eighteen months, to seven years. The knobs in the 

 horns, and their teeth, ascertain their age. The num- 

 ber of teeth is not alwavs the same in female goats ; 

 but they have generally fewer than the male goat, 

 which has also the hair rougher, and the beard 

 and the horns longer. These animals, like oxen and 

 sheep, have four stomachs, and chew the cud. This 

 species is more diffused than that of the sheep ; goats 

 like ours are found in several parts of the world, only 

 in Guinea, and other warm countries they are smal- 

 ler ; but in Muscovy, and other cold climates, they are 

 larger. The goats of Angora, and of Syria, have ears 

 hanging clown, and are of the same species with ours, 

 They mix and produce together, even in our climate, 

 The males have horns almost as long as the common 

 goat ; but the circumference and directions are very 

 different. They are extended horizontally on each 

 side of the head, and form spirals, somewhat like a 



