THE MOUNTAIN-GOAT 225 



first alarm to the most inaccessible crags, and stop sit- 

 ting up like " begging dogs " to be shot at, they may, no 

 doubt, remain to ornament the mountain-tops for many 

 years to come. No sportsman, head-hunter or meat- 

 shooter would be likely to go after the white goat in 

 mountains where the big-horn were equally abundant. 

 Both meat-shooters and head-hunters care more for the 

 elk and deer than for the goat. In the mountains in- 

 habited by the white goat there are still some moose, 

 and the sportsman going in or coming out may meet a 

 bear, and can count on getting one in many localities 

 provided he is willing to give a few days to their pur- 

 suit and has the dogs. 



Roosevelt says this goat is the only game beast of 

 North America which has not decreased in numbers 

 since the arrival of the white man. The reasons given 

 for their holding their own are: that the Indians, who 

 hunted the goat for robes, now get blankets; the early 

 trappers kept to the valleys, and the toil is too great 

 and the flesh too worthless. The same writer regards 

 the chase as laborious rather than exciting, and as less 

 attractive than the pursuit of other game. 



The naturalists, as we have observed, had much diflfi- 

 culty in naming and classifying this remarkable ani- 

 mal. Lewis and Clark brought in a skin, or part of 

 one, which had been used by the Indians as a coat or 

 robe, and from this the naturalists began to describe 

 and name the beast. He has been a goat, a sheep, a 

 chamois, an antelope. Nearly all of the time, I believe, 

 he has had four legs and been a ruminant quadruped. 

 I forget if he is just now an antelope or a goat, but 

 can promise the reader that any new thing he may 



