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CHAPTER VII. 



THE GOAT. 



Although the goat and the sheep are commonly 

 classed together, and not unfrequently run in 

 company, there is a great difference between 

 them in habits and disposition. In the first 

 place, the goat immediately regains the faculties 

 which enable it to thrive as a wild animal wher- 

 ever it escapes from human control. One finds 

 goats which have run wild almost all the world 

 over where there are mountains. The goat is 

 historically a climber among the rocks, whereas 

 the ancestor of the sheep, unless alarmed by a 

 foe, fed on the grassy slopes of the hillsides. 

 Wild goats to this day prefer to live among 

 precipices and broken crags, and to browse upon 

 the leaves of the scattered shrubs which find 

 lodgment in the clefts and crannies. The goat 



