SECRETARY'S REPORT. 325 



thcj can do nothing but cuddle down in their miserable log- 

 Imt, peeping out now and then to see that the Hock, often better 

 off than they, are not straying beyond the bounds. 



As the autumn approaches they move down to the cow pas- 

 tures, and finally, wlicn these become uninhabitable, to the 

 valleys, where they spend the winter. The Alpine goat some- 

 times gets in among the wild chamois and remains with them 

 for months together, but will generally come down to its winter 

 shed in the Ml. 



Occasionally a herd of goats in milk is to be met with in the 

 wild tracts of the mountains. The goatherds milk them, and 

 make the milk into cheese, using the whey as their own food. 

 In leisure hours the attendant occupies himself in cutting the 

 little patclies of grass often growing on the steepest precipices, 

 and which the goats cannot get at to eat. This he makes into 

 hay in August and September, and carries it down on his back 

 to some accessible store-house or barn lower down the mountain, 

 and when the snow comes, sleds it down into the valleys. 

 Haying in this way is often dangerous, as the goats and 

 chamois, on precipices higher up, often loosen the rocks which 

 come rolling and bounding down, leaving no time to isscape. 



Butter is sometimes made of goat's milk, but is is quite white 

 and very soon turns bitter ; but as it grows old, the older the 

 better, it is used as an effectual remedy for wounds and bruises. 



The goat is sold to be eaten by English travellers, under the 

 name of chamois venison, and on one or two occasions I had a 

 strong suspicion that what was set before me for chamois was 

 goat's meat, but I persuaded myself that I had the genuine 

 article on Mont Cenis and on the Great St. Bernard. 



Thousands of sheep are also summered on the higher ranges 

 of the Alps which are inaccessible to cows, often rising to over 

 9,000 feet, where scarcely more than little oases are to be found 

 surrounded by miles of glaciers and snow and rocks, and to which 

 the sheep have to be drawn up by ropes over the edges of preci- 

 pices, or carried up on the back of the shepherd. I saw many 

 such little islands to which the approach was next to impossible. 

 These flocks are often tended by boys, who are obliged to be on 

 the watch against accidents to which their sheep are liable. 



There are several varieties of sheep in the Alps. The Merino 

 endures the climate well, and is sometimes found, but those 



