GOATS. 249 
a rule a pair of kids every summer. The villagers train their dogs to hunt 
them down, when the ibex become so stupefied with terror that they are easily 
approached and shot.” 
The foregoing account refers to the habits of this ibex in the Kashmir district, 
and it accords in the main with an earlier one from the pen of General Kinloch. 
The latter writer states that 
ibex but seldom come as low 
as the upper limits of forest ; 
and even during the winter 
“do not, as a rule, descend 
very low, but resort to places 
where, from the steepness of 
the hillside, the snow does 
not lie in any quantity. Here 
they may be detained for 
weeks by a heavy fall, pick- 
ing a_ scanty subsistence 
from the scattered tufts of 
withered herbage that here 
and there crop out of the 
crevices of the roeks. At 
this season males and females 













herd together; but as the 
snow melts and the time for 
the birth of -the young 
approaches, the old males 
forsake the females  alto- 
gether, and, as the summer 
advances, retire to the most 
== 
=—— 
inaccessible mountains, fre- 
= 

quently sleeping during the 
day above the limits of vege- 
tation, and descending great 
distances to feed in the 
= 
A 
BZ 
mornings and evenings. The 



best time to shoot ibex is 

when the young grass is just 




beginning to sprout along the ~~ re NDE, 
margin of the snow in May 
and June; after the hardships and frequent long fasts of winter they feed greedily 
on the fresh young shoots, and in secluded spots may be found lying down on 
the grassy slopes during the day.” 
The same writer proceeds to observe that, although excessively wary, the 
Himalayan ibex, on account of the broken nature of the ground it frequents, is not 
very difficult to approach within shooting distance. From our own personal 
observation and the accounts of the natives of the secluded valleys around 
i 
is 
