GOATS. 



249 



a rule a pair of kids every summer. The villagers train their dogs to hunt 

 them down, when the ibex become so stupefied with terror that they are easily 

 approached and shot." 



The foregoing account refers to the habits of this ibex in the Kashmir district, 

 and it accords in the main with an earlier one from the pen of General Kinloch. 

 The latter writer states that 

 ibex but seldom come as low 

 as the upper limits of forest ; 

 and even during the winter 

 " do not, as a rule, descend 

 very low, but resort to places 

 where, from the steepness of 

 the hillside, the snow does 

 not lie in any quantity. Here 

 they may be detained for 

 weeks by a heavy fall, pick- 

 ing a scanty subsistence 

 from the scattered tufts of 

 withered herbage that here 

 and there crop out of the 

 crevices of the rocks. At 

 this season males and females 

 herd together; but as the 

 snow melts and the time for 

 the birth of the young 

 approaches, the old males 

 forsake the females alto- 

 gether, and, as the summer 

 advances, retire to the most 

 inaccessible mountains, fre- 

 quently sleeping during the 

 day above the limits of vege- 

 tation, and descending great 

 distances to feed in the 

 mornings and evenings. The 

 best time to shoot ibex is 

 when the young grass is just 



beginning to sprout along the ARABIAN IBEX. 



margin of the snow in May 



and June ; after the hardships and frequent long fasts of winter they feed greedily 

 on the fresh young shoots, and in secluded spots may be found lying down on 

 the grassy slopes during the day." 



The same writer proceeds to observe that, although excessively wary, the 

 Himalayan ibex, on account of the broken nature of the ground it frequents, is not 

 very difficult to approach within shooting distance. From our own personal 

 observation and the accounts of the natives of the secluded valleys around 



