The White Goat 243 



some shade, here and there, that dulls his total 

 sheen. This I conceive to be error. Age, it is 

 possible, may bring a few dark hairs to the white 

 goat. But I should wish to be very sure about 

 this before I asserted it. The sum of my experi- 

 ence is, that first I killed some plainly old male 

 goats (they were off by themselves, no longer 

 with the herd), and of these the coats were 

 dingy; that presently I found a plainly younger 

 male goat (he was lighter in weight and his 

 horns and hoofs showed less wear), and his coat 

 was spotless ; and that finally I found the coat of 

 a kid born that same year to be equally spotless. 

 What is the inference almost the conclusion? 

 Is it not that in the older goats the color was 

 discoloration, from causes external ; that by nature 

 the goat is perfectly white ; and that the books 

 have gone on reproducing an original mistake 

 which grew from some writer's having seen only 

 goats that were weather-stained ? Oh, the repro- 

 duction of error ! The way one man's inaccurate 

 statement is blandly copied down by the next 

 man, and verification shirked at every turn ! 

 Why will they do it, these little scientific folk ? 

 For the great ones never do. The great ones 

 verify, or else, when they come to a hole in their 



