SPORT AND TRAVEL 53 



been, I should have tried a shot ; but I had no wish to 

 shoot a nanny, whose head would have been a poor 

 trophy, and who at this season of the year would have 

 been in young. The old rams, though not in high 

 condition, are at this season at their best, from a pic- 

 turesque point of view, and in their whitish coats, 

 with broad black shoulder-stripe, long black beard, 

 and beautifully curved horns sweeping back almost to 

 their haunches (and attaining to a length sometimes 

 of nearly four feet), they are, to my mind, one of the 

 very handsomest prizes to be won by a sportsman in 

 any part of the world. There is of course no close 

 season for the wild goats, or for any other wild animal 

 in Asia Minor ; and as they have been hunted and 

 harried the whole year round from prehistoric times 

 up to the present day, they have developed a perfectly 

 abnormal acuteness of all their senses, which renders 

 it by no means an easy matter to bring one to bag by 

 fair hunting. 



Shortly after seeing the little flock of nanny-goats, 

 we were sitting amongst some juniper-trees at the 

 foot of a cliff, examining the broken ground below us, 

 when suddenly a kid, followed by its dam, came walk- 

 ing along a shelf of rock immediately in front of us ; 

 and, as we were well concealed behind the stems of the 

 juniper-trees, and the wind was favourable, the little kid 

 came actually to within twenty yards of where we 

 were sitting, and I noticed distinctly its broad forehead 

 and yellowish eyes. As I had no intention of shoot- 



