THE WILD GOAT. 169 



to afflict the three species of an animal already bur- 

 dened with the name of Nemerhedus and branded 

 with the designation of " goat-antelope." Kambing 

 Grun is the Malay name for this polysyllabic animal. 



It is the only goat-like creature found in the Malay 

 Peninsula, and I content myself with calling it a goat. 

 Its distribution is as scanty as its range is wide, and 

 its extremely shy and retiring habits, even in the 

 parts of Asia where it is least scarce, make it one of 

 the animals that fall most rarely to the rifle. 



In the Malay Peninsula, Sir Frank Swettenham, 

 the late High Commissioner for the Federated Malay 

 States, is, so far as I know, the only European who 

 has shot one. Very few white men have ever set eyes 

 on a living specimen, or even come across the animal's 

 tracks, and a considerable proportion of the European 

 community is unaware of the animal's existence in 

 the countrye. 1 



The limestone hills that are studded over the allu- 

 vial plain of Kinta, in the State of Perak, are the 

 home of a considerable number of these goats. The 

 sides of these hills are sheer precipices, and one gets 

 a good idea of their general appearance when one 

 learns that, in some period of geological pressure 

 and upheaval, the limestone was forced up in a 

 liquid state through the granite in the same way 

 that oils in a painter's tube are squeezed out : the 

 hills stand up above the plains in exactly the same 

 way that the oil stands up above the mouth of the 



1 Since this was written I have heard that a young goat has been 

 captured in Selangor and presented by the Government to the 

 Zoological Society. It may be seen in the Gardens at Regent's Park. 



