THE MOUNTAIN-GOAT 223 



hunters, and as being " excessively shy." * As a matter 

 of fact, however, the sportsmen do not speak of it as 

 a very shy animal, and many of them have reported 

 it as quite tame and easy to approach. 



All animals, however, grow wilder when they are 

 much hunted, and perhaps it would not be worth while 

 to change the language of the natural histories, since 

 the white goats may decide to live up to it in a very 

 short period of time; that is, of course, if there are any 

 goats left. 



The most recent and reliable information on this 

 point we have from the editor, Mr. Shields, in his 

 article in Recreation^ entitled "Where the White Goats 

 Get Their Salt." 



" We were seriously in need of fresh meat," says the 

 editor, "when we arrived at our camp near the lick, 

 and Wright went up there to get a young goat. There 

 was nothing doing at the lick at that time, so he fol- 

 lowed the trail up the river, crossed the drift on the 

 same logs the goats used, picked up the trail on the 

 opposite side and followed it up a mountain two or three 

 miles away. There the animals habitually scattered 

 out and roamed in search of the food they needed to 

 carr}^ on their business. Wright climbed to an alti- 

 tude of about 1,200 feet above the river, when he landed 

 on a sharp ridge, and looking up, saw a band of twenty- 

 two goats, old, young and middle-aged, big, little and 



* Mr. Hornaday, per contra^ is right in referring to it as " phenomenally 

 stupid." Several times goats have, approached the canip-fircs of explorers, 

 and on one occasion an individual whose "partner" had been shot de- 

 liberately sat down dog-like thirty yards away and watched tlie hunter skin 

 and cook a portion of his mate. In Idaho two miners killed a large 

 mountain-goat with an axe. — 'Jlic American IVatnral History. 



