i82 SPORT IN EUROPE 



around the islet. These patriarchal rams are mostly hybrid, easily 

 distinguishable by their dark yellow fleece ; and they are the 

 outcome of cross-breeding with the wild goats. The latter are pretty 

 numerous on the island, having strayed from the flocks brought 

 over from Milos, at certain seasons of the year, for the sake 

 of pasturage. The hybrids are the bigger and more powerful 

 animals, carrying superb ebony-black horns, which curve backwards, 

 sabre-like, almost to the spine. The horns* of a Greek ibex, full- 

 erown and weiehino- from go to loo lbs., measure on the outward 

 curve from 27 to 28 inches ; those of smaller beasts of about 60 lbs., 

 measure 16 inches, and of does, weighing 40 to 50 lbs., 6 to 7 inches. 

 Young kids are not rarely offered for sale in the market at Canea 

 by Cretan mountaineers, who are aware that early in the spring the 

 does leave the herds and drop their young in caves situated below the 



* R. Pashley, in his classic and unrivalled work, Travels in Crete (London, 1837, 2 vols. 

 8vo), gives at the head of chapter xxxix. an engraving of a pair of horns he had obtained, 

 measuring at the outer edge 31^ inches, and on the inner edge 255 inches. They were 

 examined by Mr. Rotham, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who wrote: "The horns 

 present the anterior trenchant edge characteristic of this species. The discovery of the 

 regagrus in Crete is perhaps a fact of some zoological interest, as it is the first well- 

 authenticated European locality of this animal." This was the first positive identification 

 of the species ; for Belon and all subsequent writers supposed it to be the bouquetin of the 

 Alps. The length of the pair of horns just referred to is very nearly that assigned by Homer 

 (//. iv. 105) in the well-known description of the bow of Pandarus : 



" AvtIk' effvXa to^ov iii^oov, i^dXov aiybs 

 dypiov, bv pa. tvot avrbs, virb uripvoLO rux'Tjcas, 

 TT^Tprjs eK^aivovTa, Bebey/xevos eV npoboKrjcn , 

 ^e^XriKei irpbs (TttjOos ' 6 5' vtttlos ^fxwecre Trerpri, 

 Tou Kepa e/c KecpaXTJs eKKatdfKabiopa Tr€(fivK€i," 



where we have another vivid picture of hunting the ibex. The epithet bestowed on it by 

 Homer, tfaXos, the bounding, springing, reminds one of the "spring-bok" of South Africa. 



