CHAPTER XXY. 



HUNTING THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT. 



HERE is, perhaps, no large mammal in this 

 country of which the scientific world and 

 the reading public in general knows so 

 little as of the Rocky Mountain goat 

 (Aplocerus Montanus). There are several 

 reasons for this. First, its limited range. 

 It is confined to a small area of the Rocky 

 Mountains, principally west of the main 

 divide; to Western Montana, Eastern Idaho, 

 the Cascade Range in Washington Territory, 

 a small portion of British Columbia, and to Alaska. 

 Secondly, its habitat is the tops or near the tops of the 

 highest and most rugged peaks and cliffs, where 

 none but the hardiest and most daring hunter may 

 venture in pursuit of it, and so comparatively very 

 few are ever killed and brought into the settlements. 

 Third, it can not be successfully domesticated. Its 

 favorite food is so different from that generally 

 growing in or near any settlement, the atmosphere 

 it breathes, the mean temperature in which it lives, 

 and the ground, or rather rocks, on which it is 

 accustomed to walk, so widely different from those 

 surrounding any human habitation, that the few 



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