52 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



caucasicd) the colour and the size vary very little from the colour 

 and size of the burrhel, but the horns are true ibex horns, 

 curving back at once from the head towards the quarters, and 

 deeply indented. A glance at Mr. Littledale's trophies of 1888 

 will give an idea of the head of C. caucasica, while the little 

 sketches of horns in my possession and of the head in the 

 Kensington Museum will illustrate the difference between C. 

 cylindricornis and C. cattcasica. Before dealing with the hunting 

 of any of these mountain beasts, all of which live in the same 

 kind of country and are hunted in the same way, let me describe 

 the fourth variety to which I have alluded. 



C. cylindricornis and C. cancasica are found in Central 

 Caucasus, and from personal knowledge I know that the 

 former, C. cylindricornis or pallasi, is found also in Daghestan; 

 but it is only in Daghestan and the neighbouring mountains, 

 and I believe in Ararat, that that splendid wild goat, Hircus 

 (zgagrus, is to be found. 



Unfortunately Ararat is an impossible country for the sports- 

 man, as a gentleman named Kareim was in 1886, and perhaps 

 still is, actively engaged in the native industry of brigandage; and, 

 moreover, what few natives there are in the mountains are per- 

 petually -at war with one another, in consequence of which the 

 Russian officials will not permit sportsmen, with or without an 

 escort, to wander about Ararat. In Daghestan, in 1878, there 

 were also brigands, and, if you believed the resident Russians, 

 some of those with whom I associated were distinctly no 

 better than they ought to have been ; but to me they were the 

 kindest of hosts, and in the part of Daghestan in which I shot, life 

 was absolutely luxurious compared with the life in the villages 

 of Central Caucasus, and, indeed, quite as comfortable as any 

 healthy man need desire. The whole population is composed 

 of shepherds and hunters ; the half of their flocks being ot 

 goats, so like Hircus cegagrus in type that the suspicion that 

 he himself was but a tame goat ' gone wild ' would force itself 

 upon one. The reverse of this may be the truth ; but un- 

 doubtedly there are among the herds which the little Lesghians 



