102 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



the spot where he then stood was lower than that whence 

 he had sprung, so that return was impossible. The ledge 

 where he had landed was, too, so narrow that he could 

 not sit down there, but only stand ; and thus, leaning on 

 his rifle, his back against the smooth perpendicular rock, 

 and before him an abyss, he stood awaiting his fate. A 

 step would have precipitated him below. Night came 

 on, and to add to the horror of his situation a thunder- 

 storm roared and poured down torrents of rain over the 

 rocks. 



His comrade meanwhile had arrived at the meeting- 

 place, and missing his companion, began to fear an acci- 

 dent had befallen him. The following morning, as soon 

 as it was light, he set out to search, and towards eleven 

 a.m., Blasi to his great joy sees his friend looking down 

 upon him from a rock. A rope is let down, and he who 

 may be said to have already tasted of death, is drawn 

 up and saved. That one night, however, was enough to 

 bleach entirely the hair of the mountaineer. 



Ikte. 



I subjoin a few points of difference between the Goat and the Chamois. 

 Their skeletons, it seems, are not the same ; for not having myself 

 examined the arrangement of the bones in the two animals, I quote, 

 regarding their formation, from ' Histoire Naturelle, generate et parti- 

 culiere, avec la Description du Cabinet du Roi. Tome douzieme. Paris, 

 mdcclxiv.' " L'apophyse epineuse de la seconde vertebre cervicale dif- 

 fere de celle du bouc, en ce qu'elle est moins haute et presqu'aussi saillante 

 en arriere qu'en avant, ce qui ne se trouve ni dans la gazelle, ni dans le 

 cerf, le chevreuil, etc. ; la branche inferieure de l'apophyse oblique de la 

 sixieme vertebre n'est pas echancree comme dans le bouc : elle ressemble 

 a celle de la gazelle, du chevreuil, etc." The frontal bone of the chamois, 

 just before the horns, is concave ; that of the goat, convex. The horns 

 of the latter recede ; those of the former animal always advance. The 

 goat's horns too are flat near their base, and wrinkled ; the chamois' are 



