5U 



VERTEERATA. 



MALE CASHMERE GOAT.* 



pass along cliffs and ledges with security from which any other species would be hurled to de- 

 struction. It' two of them meet on a ledge too narrow for them to pass, one kneels down and the 

 other passes over his back! All their senses are exceedingly acute. They are intelligent, and 

 be trained to the harness and taught to draw small vehicles. One of the delights of the 

 Champs Elys6es of Paris, to the young, is to ride for a few sous in a coach drawn by six goats. 

 The sportive humor of these animals maybe turned to account in the performance of various 

 tricks. Every reader will remember the manner in which Alexander Selkirk amused himself by 

 bring his goats to dance, and occasionally taking a rigadoon with them himself. Their favor- 

 • food consists of the tops, tendrils, and flowers of aromatic shrubs. They feed safely on many 

 plants which are poisonous to other ruminants. Ilasselgren says that they feed on four hundred 

 an'l forty-nine different kinds of plants! They are fond of grape-vines, and so the ancients sacri- 

 ficed them to Bacchus. 



There has been greal discussion as to the origin of the domestic goat. It is supposed by many 

 learned men that the mountains of the earth must have been first inhabited by man, because they 

 would fir-t be dry and salubrious, while yet the valleys were filled with pestilent vapors, and 

 therefore thai the goat, being a mountain animal, must have been the first that was domesticated. 

 However this may be, it is certain that it figures largely in the early annals of mankind. Tlic 

 ian Jupiter had the horns of a ram, and Pan, the symbol of the productive energies of nature, 

 was furnished with the attributes of a goat. The aegis of Jupiter and breastplate of Minerva were a 

 simple goat-skin. Under the Jewish ritual the goat was an important animal, and was the symbol 

 itonement in the Bplendid ceremonial imposed by the Supreme Lawgiver. The formidable war- 

 tunics of the < limbri wen; the skins of goats, and these were the winter dress of the Roman aux- 

 iliary -, as well in Britain as other northern provinces. Virgil, in his Georgics, directs the shep- 

 herds to dear the long beards and hair of the Cinyphean goats for the service of the cam]'. Varro 

 tells iu that goats 1 hair was nscd for the dress of sailors and coverings of engines of war. The 



■ Dgraving "f :i male Cashmere Goat is a portrait of one of two of these animals imported by Dr. J. B. 

 Davis, in 1849, and afterward the property of R. Peters, Esq., of Atlanta, Georgia. 



