Wild Goat of Afghanistan. 525 



rump, and the back consequently appears to slope gently 

 from the shoulders to the hind quarters. This feature is 

 much heightened by the occurrence along the back of the 

 neck and on the shoulders of long hair, which stands up 

 erectly, so as to form a well-marked mane, which when the 

 animal is alarmed or angry, becomes a very prominent cha- 

 racter. This mane is dark coloured, and forms part of the 

 black dorsal line. The head is usually kept stretched out, 

 as it were, and the expression of the face is gentle though 

 somewhat wild. 



The attitude and general character have been very suc- 

 cessfully represented in the accompanying copy of a drawing 

 by my friend Dr. P. F. Baddeley. 



Its usual quick pace is a kind of canter, which among the 

 hills enables it rapidly to evade pursuit, but is not nimble 

 enough, nor is the stride sufficiently long, to suit it to the 

 plain lands, though for scaling mountainous heights it is 

 admirably adapted. The leaps they take are tremendous, 

 and almost pass credibility. An old male which was for 

 some time in my possession at Candahar, and had been 

 taken by greyhounds in a valley while weak and emaciated 

 at the close of the rutting season, often sprung up to the 

 top of a wall twelve feet high, which formed one side of his 

 enclosure, and after looking round him for a minute or two, 

 with an evident desire to attain to a still more elevated 

 position on the roof of the adjoining buildings, he would 

 drop suddenly from the wall to the ground, and then stand 

 as if rooted to the spot, and without having received the 

 slightest impetus or tendency to fall forward a few paces, 

 which most animals receive when leaping down from a 

 height. This faculty or power of stopping dead-short, must 

 be of the utmost service to the animal, and enables it when 

 springing up or down among its native rocks, to check it- 

 self, and stand fixed statue-like on the instant, and so avoid 

 falling into the yawning chasms and precipices of the moun- 



