THE GOAT. 



Zodiac, the Antelope, and not the Goat, is used as the sign 

 of Capricorn. The Sacred Writings continually refer to the 

 Goat as forming, along with the Sheep, the Ox. and the Camel, 

 the riches of the patriarchal families. He is one of the ani- 

 mals permitted by the laws of Moses .to be used as human 

 food, and he is ordained to be employed in a remarkable re- 

 ligious ceremony. He was cultivated by the Hindoos from 

 the earliest times ; and he is figured on the sculptured monu- 

 ments of the Egyptians, in their representations of mystic 

 emblems, religious rites, and rural labours. By the earliest 

 writers of Greece and Rome he is continually referred to as 

 yielding food and raiment ; and superstition connected him 

 with the attributes and service of the Gods. He was dedi- 

 cated to Jupiter Conservator, and sacrificed to Apollo, Diana, 

 Bacchus, and the Paphian Venus, and his skin was the JEgi* 

 of the Goddess of Wisdom and Arms. His form was one of 

 the attributes of Pan and the Satyrs, indicating the procrea- 

 tive power and rustic plenty. He was domesticated by the 

 Lybians and the nations that stretched along the southern 

 shores of the Mediterranean inland to the mountains of Atlas. 

 He was cultivated by the Dacians, Sarmatians, and other 

 nations stretching from the Euxine into the wilds of Scythia. 

 The Gauls and all the Celtic people of Europe appear to have 

 been possessed of him in the domesticated state, using his 

 hair and skin for garments, and his fiesh and milk for food. 

 Up to nearly the present day, the descendants of the pristine 

 Celtre cultivated the Goat, as one of the most useful of the 

 animals given to them for food. Until a recent period, the 

 Cambro-Britons and the Celtic people of the mountains of 

 North Britain and Ireland, made greater use of the Goat 

 than of the Sheep ; and many of their appellations of families, 

 places, mountains, rivers, and natural objects, are derived 

 from the name which it bears in the Celtic tongue. In like 

 manner, the Scandinavian, the German, and other Teutonic 

 nations, who had migrated in the first ages into Europe from 

 the East, were possessed of this gift of Providence, used his 

 spoils for raiment and food, arid coupled him with their wild 



