CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 9. RUMINANTIA. 



513 



,,**v?^3; „/0fi'/t' f \ 



THE COMMON GOAT. 



large towns of Italy, flocks of them are every day driven through the streets and milked at the 

 places where the milk is wanted. The undressed skins of goats are the winter covering of a large 

 part of the mountain shepherds and peasants of Europe and Asia. Many a poor family in France, 

 Italy, Germany, Greece, and Spain would inevitably perish without the assistance of these humble 

 brutes. In many cases goats are the wet-nurses of infants, and become so attached to them as to 

 run and offer them their food on hearing their cries. 



While goats are thus the friends of the poor, they contribute largely to the luxuries of the rich.. 

 The Cashmere shawls, made from the hair of certain species, are among the most valued and 

 costly ornaments of fashionable beauty, as well among the sable princesses of India as the fairer 

 belles of Europe. A first-rate Cashmere shawl has been often sold for five hundred dollars, 

 some even for a thousand. The kid-gloves manufactured by millions in France, and distributed 

 through Paris over all the fashionable world from San Francisco to St. Petersburg, are made of 

 the skins of young goats. The skins of goats make the finest morocco, used for a thousand orna- 

 mental purposes, and especially for the delicate feet of the fair. The skins of goats, with the hair 

 on, cover the dragoons' holsters and form the knapsack of the foot-soldier. Formerly — in the 

 time of Louis XIV. — when men and women cut off the hair which nature gave them and wore 

 wigs, the hair of the white common goats was in great request for this purpose. In England, at 

 the present day, the lawyers, judges, and bishops wear wigs made of white goat's hair. The 

 horns of this animal make excellent knife-handles, and their tallow the best of candles. Their 

 hams, when salted and dried, are called rock venison, and equal those of the deer. The medici- 

 nal virtues of the milk have been already alluded to, and the cheese it produces is the boast of 

 many a mountain dairy. We may add, finally, that goats are the most picturesque of animals, 

 and many an artist has been indebted to the felicitous introduction of a flock of them, browsing 

 among their mountain landscapes, for the chief interest of his picture. 



As goats are thus useful to man — contributing alike to his commonest necessities and his most 

 refined luxuries — they are in many other respects curious and interesting animals. The males 

 have an offensive smell, but this is thought healthful to horses, on' which account a he-goat is 

 often an appendage of the stable. When mingled with sheep, the goats always take the lead, and 

 the sheep follow in the rear. They are bold, impudent, familiar, capricious, observant of every 

 thing that passes around them, and ready on the slightest occasion to defend themselves or make 

 an attack. They do not push like bulls nor butt like rams, but rise and descend on the enemy 

 '^ith an oblique but effective blow. They are among the most sure-footed of animals, and will 



Vol. I.— 65 



