84 HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 



low. The horns of the female are less, and not so 

 much bent: they are so sharp that the natives have 

 been known to bleed cattle with them. 



These animals are so much incommoded by heat, 

 that they are seldom seen in summer, except in the 

 caverns of rocks, amidst fragments of unmelted ice, 

 under the shade of high and spreading trees, or of 

 rough and hanging precipices, that face the North, 

 and keep off entirely the rays of the sun. They go 

 to pasture both morning and evening, and seldom 

 during the heat of the day. They run along the 

 rocks with great ease and seeming indifference, and 

 leap from one to another, so that no Dogs are able 

 to pursue them. Nothing can be more extraordinary 

 than the facility with which they climb and descend 

 precipices, that to most other quadrupeds are in- 

 accessible : they always mount or descend in an 

 oblique direction, and throw themselves down a 

 rock of thirty feet, and light with great security up- 

 on some excrescence or fragment, on the side of the 

 precipice, which is just large enough to place their 

 feet upon : they strike the rock, however, in the de- 

 scent, with their feet, three or four times, to stop the 

 velocity of their motion ; and when they have got 

 upon the base below, they at once seem fixed and 

 secure. In fact, to see them jump in this manner, 

 they seem rather to have wings than legs. Certain 

 it is, that their legs are formed for this arduous em- 

 ployment; the hind being rather longer than the 

 fore legs, and bending in such a manner, that when 

 they descend upon them, they break the force of 

 their fall. 



During the rigours of winter, the Chamois keeps 

 in the thickest forests, and feeds upon the shrubs 

 and the buds of the pine-tree. 



