Climbing for White Goats 



can, with his faculty for seizing on any 

 salient characteristic, has called it goat. 

 So in the vernacular these animals, young 

 and old, are billies, nannies, and kids, and 

 will be so always. 



This Alpine antelope is about the size 

 of a sheep, and is remarkable in being 

 white. Now, nothing is more conspicu- 

 ous against the summer landscape than 

 a patch of white. On the other hand, 

 many birds and mammals inhabiting 

 snow-clad regions have white plumage 

 or fur, and are thus invisible at a little 

 distance. The goat is one of the mam- 

 mals thus protected. Its life is passed 

 high up on lofty mountains, often among 

 fields of ice and snow, or at least where 

 snow remains in patches and drifts almost 

 throughout the year. Amid such su'r- 

 roundings it is mere accident if a white 

 animal is seen by the hunter. 



The short, sharp, backward-directed 

 horns, the stout hoofs, and the margins 

 of the eyes and lips, are black. Young 

 individuals have the long hair on the 

 ridge of the back gray, which, perhaps, 

 points back to ancestors which were not 

 white, but were gray in color like a Japa- 

 nese relative of this species. 



The goat is an animal of the north ; 



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