ORDER RUM1NANTIA. 301 



the male in his third year, but more slender, less curved, 

 and marked with four knots on the anterior side ; the fore- 

 head, sternum, anterior face of the legs, and the pasterns, 

 were earthy-brown ; the neck and back gray-brown, paler 

 beneath. The Ibex ruts in autumn; the male then emit- 

 ting a most powerful smell, assembles the females, and re- 

 mains with them till the spring ; when the females begin 

 to withdraw into cover, for the purposes of parturition, 

 which takes place in one hundred and sixty days after im- 

 pregnation, usually in April ; the kids following the mother 

 in a few hours after their birth. 



The species seems to be confined to the highest moun- 

 tains of Europe, the Alps, particularly the Rhcetian, and 

 the Pyrenees, with their loftiest branches. They may exist 

 still in those of Candia, Greece, and the Carpathian, but it 

 is doubtful whether the variety noticed by Pallas in the 

 Caucasian range, was decidedly of the same species. They 

 prefer the most elevated ridges, upon and near the verge of 

 perpetual snow, which they invariably seek when pursued. 

 In Savoy and Switzerland they are now rarer than in the 

 Tyrol, and in the Pyrenees they are nearly extinct. 



The Abyssinian Ibex. (C. Jaela.*) There are indica- 

 tions that this animal was known and noticed by the an- 

 cients, although both Aristotle and Pliny deny the exis- 

 tence of Wild Goats in Africa, as is remarked by Gesner. 

 It appears, also, that the same species resides in the moun- 

 tains of Arabia, is referred to by Avicenna, and occurs 

 under the name of Jaal, in the book of Job. Our original 

 drawing, compared with the skulls and horns of several 

 specimens in London, shews the African Ibex to be some- 

 what more elevated on the legs than the European, of a 

 dirty brownish fawn colour, with a short beard, and length- 

 ened hair under the throat down to the breast, and a darkish 

 line on the anterior part of the legs, and along the back ; 

 * l6jP Jala, Chaldaice, by Jaal, Arabicc. 



