314 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



brought them; nor, indeed, can their intellectual qualifica- 

 tions be justly considered as inferior to those of the Caprine 

 genus. We have already alluded to a striking proof of their 

 intelligence in a former part of this work ; and it is equally 

 known that they practise the same expedient for passing 

 each other on a narrow space, as is recorded of the goat. 

 They are certainly timid animals, but this shyness, as in other 

 ruminants, is balanced by curiosity, and when once overcome, 

 tends to extreme confidence. We cannot, therefore, assent to 

 the whole inferences drawn by the acute observer M. F. 

 Cuvier, and by M. Desmarets, from the apparent stupidity 

 of the Mufro allowing itself to be caught as often as was re- 

 quired, by merely offering it bread ; we only see in this fact, 

 that the animal had so far familiarized itself with man as to 

 feel the desire of obtaining a dainty, more than the fear of 

 ill consequences. It is not under the confined circumstances 

 in which this animal' was placed, but it is in the country 

 where no direct constraint has cramped their faculties, and 

 above all, in their wild state, that we should study and ap- 

 preciate their moral qualities. Now if we turn our view to 

 an intermediate state, as, for instance, the Mountain Sheep 

 of Wales, half wild from the nature of the country, we find 

 them not crowded in close herds, because experience has 

 taught them to feel secure from carnivora, but scattered in 

 groups of twelve or fourteen, one of which is, nevertheless, 

 on the look out, from a rock or a peak, to give warning of 

 the approach of any strange object, and to give the hissing 

 signal of retreat, when all betake themselves to the most 

 inaccessible parts of the mountain. Such is also the practice 

 of the American, and no doubt of all the Argalis, whence 

 the difficulty of arriving within gun-shot, which is as well 

 known in Kamschatka as among the Cree Indians- If they be 

 shot, it is, in general, because, feeling secure from dogs, they 

 will stop and look with curiosity from some lofty crag upon 

 their cry beneath, while the wary hunter steals unperceived 



