HISTORY OF THE GOAT. 45 



of the world. In all regions they inhabit the most wild 

 and inaccessible places ; and yet they seem to have a 

 stronger attachment to the human race than almost any 

 other animals : they are playful and familiar ; and it is 

 highiy probable that the goat was among the first animals 

 that man employed in a domestic state. An instance of 

 this is mentioned by a very accurate naturalist, relative to 

 the wild goat of the Alps : he and his party landed on a 

 wild and romantic spot on the bank of the lake of Thun, 

 where those animals are numerous, and left comparatively 

 in a state of nature ; but he* and his companions had no 

 sooner landed than these wild goats came bleating around 

 them, with their kids, and even entered the boat, and 

 resisted being driven from it. They did this too evidently 

 from mere attachment to the travellers, because the pasture 

 was rich, and the travellers had nothing in the shape of 

 food wherewithal to tempt them. 



The introduction of the goat and the ram into the zodiac 

 by the very earliest astronomers, shows that the people 

 who first cultivated the science of the heavens were fami- 

 liar with these animals ; and, indeed, there is reason to sup- 

 pose that the human race, from very nearly the dawn of 

 their history, domesticated and found advantages in those 

 animals. The account given of the deluge in the book of 

 Genesis, is too scanty for supplying any adequate materials 

 for natural history; but it is recorded that the ark rested 

 on the tops of the mountains. We have also evidence in 

 Britain, and almost in every country, that the mountain 

 tops were the habitations of men before they took posses- 

 sion of the plains ; and that in those early times the plains 

 were covered with thick forests, inundated with water, or 

 so full of bogs and quagmires, as not to be fit for human 

 abodes. In many places, both of England and of Scotland, 

 we have evidence of early inhabiting and cultivation upon 

 heights w 7 hich are now bleak and wasted and even the 



