SHEEP AND GOAT KIND. 277 



instead of going backwards or sideways, jet out 

 forward, and bend a little at their extremities 

 backward, in a small circle, and end in a very 

 sharp point. The ears are placed in a very ele- 

 gant manner, near the horns ; and there are two 

 stripes of black on each side of the face, the rest 

 being of a whitish yellow, which never changes. 

 The horn of this animal is often used as the head 

 of a cane. Those of the female are less, and not 

 so much bent ; and some farriers are seen to bleed 

 cattle with them. These animals are so much in- 

 commoded by heat, that they are never found in 

 summer, except in the caverns of rocks, amidst 

 fragments of unmelted ice, under the shade of 

 high and spreading trees, or of rough and hang- 

 ing precipices, that face the north, and which 

 keep off entirely the rays of the sun. They go 

 to pasture both morning and evening, and seldom 

 during the heat of the day. They run along the 

 rocks with great ease and seeming indifference, 

 and leap from one to another, so that no dogs are 

 able to pursue them. There is nothing more ex- 

 traordinary than to see them climbing and de- 

 scending precipices, that to all other quadrupeds 

 are inaccessible. They always mount or descend 

 in an oblique direction ; they throw themselves 

 down a rock of thirty feet, and light with great 

 security upon some excrescence or fragment, on 

 the side of the precipice, which is just large enough 

 to place their feet upon ; they strike the rock, 

 however, in their descent, with their feet, three 

 or four times, to stop the velocity of their motion ; 

 and, when they have got upon their base below, 



