348 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



which surrounds the home of the Mountain Goat. Among 

 these rugged peaks, there is little for the avarice of man to 

 covet or his hand to develop"; and, taking all these facts 

 into consideration, it may be safe to predict that the White 

 Goat of British Columbia will exist when all the larger 

 animals of the forest shall be exterminated or driven beyond 

 its boundaries. 



One word respecting large Goats. From time to time, 

 stories have been told me about monster Goats that have 

 been met with in the mountains, and the. opinion of not a 

 few is that a larger variety of this animal exists. During 

 a trip, last winter, of about a hundred miles, up the coast of 

 British Columbia, out .of about sixty skins which I exam- 

 ined at an Indian ranch, I picked out four large ones, three 

 of which measured five feet in length, while the fourth 

 measured seven feet, with a breadth of four feet ten inches. 

 This, even allowing for stretching after being taken off, was 

 an enormous skin, and 'must have.belonged to a monster 

 Goat. That two varieties of this animal exist I do not 

 believe; nor do I think that overgrown individuals are more 

 frequent with Mountain Goats than with other species of 

 wild animals. 



As experience is the best teacher, it may be well to give 

 here narratives of two excursions after this animal, at two 

 different seasons of the year — one in May, the other in 

 September. These' will give a fair idea as to the kind of 

 sport to be had and the nature of the difficulties to be 

 encountered. My experience extends over a period of many 

 years, and over the greater portion of this wonderful 

 country of forest, stream, and mountain — the coast region 

 of British Columbia; and I am only sorry that out of it 

 all I can not recall more excitement, more genuine sport, 

 in Mountain- Goat hunting than is related in the following. 

 Both of these hunts took place on the north arm of Burrard 

 Inlet, about fifteen miles from the now flourishing city of 

 Vancouver, the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific 

 Hail way. 



