234 UNGULATES. 



from these bushes. They had been lying within sixty yards of me, and must have 

 been fully conscious of my presence all the time. The arui, in this habit of hiding! 

 is very like the Pyrenean ibex, which lives in rather similar ground, and also 

 trusts to concealment in preference to flight." 



In Algeria the rams of this species are distinguished as fechtal, the ewes an 

 massa, and the lambs as charuf. 



The Goats. 

 Genus Capra. 



The two preceding species of sheep connect the more typical representatives 

 of that group so intimately with the goats that there is some difficulty in drawing 

 up a list of characters which will satisfactorily distinguish between the two. The 

 males of all the goats are, however, characterised by the possession of a peculiar 

 strong odour, while they very generally have a beard on the chin. None of them 

 have any gland on the face below the eye (in which respect they resemble the 

 bharal and Barbary sheep) ; and they differ from all the sheep in the absence of 

 any glands between the hoofs of the hind-feet, while in some cases these glands 

 are likewise wanting in the fore-feet. In all cases the tail is short, and there are 

 peculiar hard patches, or callosities, on the knees, and in some instances also on 

 the chest. The skull of a goat differs from that of a sheep in that the plane of the 

 portion behind the horns meets that of the part in front of the same in an obtuse 

 instead of a right angle, while the profile of the face is very concave, and the 

 occipital region rounded instead of nearly flat. The true goats, or those constitut- 

 ing the genus Capra, are further distinguished by the great length of the horns 

 of the males. These are situated close together immediately above the eyes, ami 

 are continued upwards at first in the plane of the forehead ; they may be either 

 scimitar-shaped, with a backward sweep, or spiral, and are generally more or less 

 compressed and angulated, while they are frequently ornamented with knobs or 

 knots in front. In the females the horns are much smaller, and set farther apart 

 at their bases. 



Although the term goat is applied to one American ruminant, yet goats in the 

 proper sense of the word are exclusively restricted to the Old World. Moreover, 

 these animals are mainly confined to Europe and Asia north of the southern flanks 

 of the Himalaya. It is true, indeed, that one species occurs in Egypt and another 

 in Abyssinia, but the group is quite unknown in the whole of the remainder of 

 Africa, while the species inhabiting the mountains of Southern India is classed 

 in a genus apart from that containing the true goats. There are about ten species 

 of true wild goats, all of which live in herds, although the males sometimes keep 

 apart from the females, and are occasionally solitary. Like the sheep, the goats 

 are essentially mountain animals, but they generally inhabit more rugged and 

 precipitous ground than do the majority of the former; this is, however, not 

 invariably the case, as the Himalayan ibex ranges on to the open country of the 

 Pamirs. All the members of the group are very active and wary animals, and 

 they are characterised by their tendency to browse on the young shoots and leaves 



