298 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



or yellowish colour, with a lengthened dark pupil, has a 

 lively and independent expression ; there is no suborbital 

 or lachrymary opening beneath the eye ; the nose is without 

 a muzzle, leaving only a narrow naked space between the 

 nostrils ; a beard adorns the chin of nearly all the males ; 

 the ears are narrow and rather rounded at the tips ; the 

 tail is short, naked below, often carried in an elevated po- 

 sition, and the fur is not very coarse, but of different 

 lengths and colours, and accompanied beneath by a close 

 woolly down ; the legs are strong and thick, with a small 

 callosity on the carpus instead of a brush ; the hoofs are 

 high and solid, supporting rigid perpendicular pasterns. 

 The females are furnished with two mammae, forming an 

 udder ; their time of gestation is five months, and the 

 young female is capable of propagating at seven months 

 old: two kids are usually produced at a birth. The male 

 requires one year to develop his faculties, and one is suffi- 

 cient for a flock of one hundred goats ; but at six years of 

 age he is already old, though the life of this genus extends 

 to fifteen. At all times, but more particularly during the 

 rutting season, the males emit a powerful smell ; they are 

 libidinous, and contend for the possession of the females by 

 butting with their horns, not in the manner of the Stag or 

 Bull, by running low at each other, but by standing on the 

 hind-legs and striking with their whole weight obliquely 

 downwards. During these conflicts they mutter abruptly, 

 lick their lips, and paw the ground. 



Goats are by nature inclined to ascend : in a wild state 

 all the species reside on the most elevated mountains upon 

 the borders of perpetual snow ; and the domesticated, if 

 they live in mountainous countries, will climb invariably, 

 while feeding, till the necessity of drinking, or the habits 

 of education, again call them down. When mixed with 

 sheep they always take the lead, and the more helpless 

 species follows their track. They are fearless, capricious, 



