ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHITE GOAT 
to the encyclopedias, or, better, to such authors as Baillie- 
Grohman ”’ for a history of the chamois. This will be more 
excusable, perhaps, if I add that the chamois (gemse, izard, 
or atchi), once numerous on high mountains from Spain to 
Greece and Persia, is now extinct as a wild animal west of 
Transylvania, except on a few baronial estates. 
Our western American pure white mountain goat is one of 
the most peculiar and to us the most interesting of the group — 
a “‘white buffalo” the Indians styled it, when they white 
reported it in British Columbia to Alexander Macken- _—&at- 
zie on his approach to the Pacific coast in 1793; this is the oldest 
mention of it I have been able to find, and the next is the vague 
account furnished by the writers of the Lewis and Clark Ex- 
pedition. In place of a formal description of this mountain 
antelope (for he is no more a goat than is his “nearest of kin,” 
the chamois), let me quote a portrait sketch by Owen Wister,”"® 
who paints from life: — 
“He’s white, all white, and shaggy, and twice as large as any goat you 
ever saw. His white hair hangs long all over him, like a Spitz dog’s or an 
Angora cat’s;. . and against its shaggy white mass the blackness of 
his hoofs, and horns, and nose looks particularly black. His legs are 
thick, his neck is thick, everything about him is thick, saving only his thin 
black horns. They’re generally about six [often more than nine] inches 
long, they spread very slightly, and they curve slightly backward. At their 
base they are a little rough, but as they rise they cylindrically smooth 
and taper to an ugly point. His hoofs are heavy, broad, and blunt. 
The female is lighter built than the male, and with horns more 
slender —a trifle. And (to return to the question of diet) we visited 
the pasture where the herd of (thirty-five) had been, and found no 
sign of grass growing or grass eaten; there was no grass on that moun- 
tain. The only edible substance was a moss, tufted, stiff, and dry to the 
touch.... Ialso learned that the goat is safe from predatory animals. 
With his impenetrable hide and his disembowelling horns, he is left by 
the wolves and mountain lions respectfully alone.” 
The pelage of this goat is the softest and finest worn by any American 
hoofed mammal excepting the musk ox; but the hairs are coarser and 
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