Mammal Study 



277 



and above the hoofs. The goat can run with great rapidity. The tail 

 of the goat is short hke that of the deer, and does not need to be ampu- 

 tated Hke that of the sheep. Although the normal covering of the goat is 

 hair, there are some species which have a more or less woolly coat. 

 When angry the goat shakes its head, and defends itself by butting 

 with the head, also by striking with the horns, which are very sharp. 

 Goats are very tractable and make affectionate pets when treated with 

 kindness; they display far more affection for their owner than do sheep. 

 Our famous Rocky Mountain goat, although it belongs rather to the 

 antelope family, is a large animal, and is the special prize of the hunter; 

 however, it stiU holds its own in the high mountains of the Rocky and 



Milch goats in Malta. 



Thompson. Twenty-first Annual Report Bureau of Animal Industry, 

 Department of Agriculture. 



Cascade Ranges. Both sexes have slender black horns, white hair, and 

 black feet, eyes and nose. Owen Wister says of this animal: "He is 

 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, save 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 become cylindrically smooth 

 and taper to an ugly point. His hoofs are heavy, broad and blunt. The 

 female is lighter than the male, and with horns more slender, a trifie. 

 And (to return to the question of diet) we visited the pasture where the 

 herd (of thirty- five) had been, and found no signs of grass growing or grass 

 eaten; there was no grass on that mountain. The only edible substance 



