S8 THE GOAT. 



are two stripes of black on each side the face. These 

 animals in summer are so much incommoded with heat, 

 that they are never to be found but in the caverns of 

 rocks, or stretched upon fragments of unmelted ice, 

 which the shades of a forest may have sheltered from the 

 sun. They go to pasture both morning and evening, 

 but never feed during the heat of the day. They run 

 along the rocks with the utmost facility, and leap from 

 one to another with the greatest ease ; neither hunters 

 nor dogs are swift enough to pursue them, and no 

 power is able to impede their flight. They mount and 

 descend in an oblique direction, and will throw them- 

 selves down a rock of thirty feet. It is asserted that, 

 •when they feed, one stands as sentinel to guard them 

 from being unexpectedly surprised ; but certain it is, 

 that, whilst they are grazing, two or three always are 

 detached from the rest. 



The only method of destroying these animals is for 

 their pursuers to secrete themselves behind the clifts of 

 the rocks, and by that means aim their pieces unper- 

 ceived. They must likewise take care that the wind does 

 not blow from them, or they would instantly be disco- 

 vered by the quickness of their smell. 



Such are the qualities that more peculiarly belong to 

 the goat kind, each of which, it is supposed, would 

 combine and breed. Nature, however, proceeds in 

 her variations both by slow and insensible degrees, and 

 scarce a distinguished line can be drawn between 

 any two animals of a neighbouring race : it is hard, 

 therefore, to say where the sheep ends, or the goat 

 commences ; but it is more difficult to fix the boun- 

 dary between the goat and the deer. In all transitions 

 from one kind to the other, there are found to be a 

 middle race, which seem to partake of the nature of 



