250 The White Goat 



does the white goat live? It would seem the 

 naturalist's business to tell us this. We have the 

 right to expect to open some single standard 

 book, and find such facts at once. Well, I have 

 had to open eight, gathering here a fact and there 

 a fact in a manner not unlike the painful process 

 of rag-picking. The result is far from covering 

 the ground ; let me acknowledge this, and beg 

 friendly correction and amplification, and let 

 me say, nevertheless, that the following is the 

 most detailed information to be found so far 

 set down in any one place. 



In Alaska and British Columbia we find the 

 goat, and in northwest Montana, and in Idaho, 

 but only in spots; he is also in the northern 

 Cascades in Washington, but, oddly enough it ap- 

 pears, not in the Olympic Range. Nor is he in 

 the southern Cascades, in Oregon. Elsewhere 

 he is not, unless possibly in California. There 

 is an ancient legend of him among the higher 

 mountains of that state; the Spanish Padre de 

 Salvatierra and his fellow-missionary, Padre Pic- 

 colo, are supposed to have seen him. We must 

 uselessly wonder if they did ; and I should have 

 been more indebted to a foot-note in the " Bio- 

 logical Survey of Mount Shasta," which touches 



