THE CHAMOIS. 9J. 



here and there a flying buttress will give additional 

 strength to the walls, or a lateral arch help to support 

 the vault above. 



The horn of the chamois is hollow up to a certain 

 height ; thence to the point it is a solid mass. This 

 hollow part of the horn however is fixed on, and filled 

 out with, a bony substance which grows with and forms 

 part of the skull itself. By a forcible twist the two may 

 be separated. Among the many stories related of the 

 chamois, it was said that they made use of their crooked 

 horns to let themselves down by, in places where descent 

 by other means was impossible. Ridiculous as the tale 

 is, many believed it ; but of such hereafter. 



The food of these animals consists of the herbs found 

 on the mountains, and the buds and young sprouts of 

 the alpine rose and the latschen. This is their sole suste- 

 nance j no creature therefore is more innoxious than the 

 chamois, and the wholesale destruction of them which 

 has taken place since 1848 cannot even be excused on 

 the plea that, like the red-deer, they occasionally tread 

 down and injure the crops of the husbandman. They 

 keep to their rocks, delighting in the highest and most 

 inaccessible places ; and it is only when winter sets in 

 with all its rigour, that they descend to seek shelter and 

 food in the woods somewhat lower down the mountain. 

 At this season they feed on such grass and leaves as they 

 can find, and probably also on the Iceland moss, which 

 is met with on the mountains. In their stomach a hard 

 dark-coloured ball is often found, bitter to the taste, but 

 of an agreeable smell : this is called Bezoar, and owes 

 its formation to the fibrous, resinous nature of the sub- 

 stances the chamois feeds on; and which, conglomera- 

 ting by degrees, at last grows into a stone-like mass. 



Chamois cannot endure the neighbourhood of sheep. 



