12 THE GOAT. 



female hanging to the ground, is as different from the Com- 

 mon Goats of the same country as the Jackal from the Wolf, 

 and has retained, as we know from ancient notices, its dis- 

 tinctive characters for twenty centuries at least ; that is, for 

 nearly two thousand generations of the race. The little 

 Goats of the coast of Guinea have been acclimated in America 

 and the West India Islands for more than a hundred years, 

 without making the least approach to those carried to the 

 same countries from Europe. These and similar facts are 

 irreconcilable with the supposition of a common descent, and 

 lead to the conclusion, that different species of Goats, having 

 the property of procreating with one another, have produced 

 the domesticated races. 



The Goat, extended throughout so many climates and dis- 

 tant countries, and subjected to conditions of life far different 

 from those to which his natural instincts adapt him, must 

 present himself to us with great variations of form and aspect, 

 independently of the diversities arising from those of the 

 parent stock. Sometimes the horns disappear in one or 

 both sexes, and in certain cases the animals become poly- 

 cerate ; sometimes the hair is long, and sometimes it is as 

 short as in the fallow deer ; and sometimes the beard is very 

 long, and sometimes it is rudimental. The colour assumes 

 every variety, from sandy- black to milk-white, and the size 

 and form of the body are greatly varied. Of the Goats of 

 Central Asia the most celebrated and best known in Europe 

 are those of Thibet, which are noted beyond all others for 

 the soft and delicate wool they produce, and which falls off 

 in the warmer season, affording the material of one of the 

 most beautiful fabrics of the Eastern looms. These Goats 

 are long in the body, having large falcated horns, stout 

 limbs, and long glossy hair, frequently a foot and a half in 

 length, trailing almost to the ground. The colour is fre- 

 quently milk-white, but more generally it is brown, with 

 points of a golden yellow. The wool, tending of itself to fall 

 off at a certain season, is easily separated by means of combs, 



