178 THE GOAT. 
apt to turn the tables on its pursuer, and assume an offensive deportment. 
Should the hunter approach too near the Ibex, the animal will, as if suddenly 
urged by the reckless courage of despair, dash boldly forward at its foe, and 
strike him from the precipitous rock over which he is forced to pass. The 
difficulty of the chase is further increased by the fact that the Ibex is a 
remarkably endurant animal, and is capable of abstaining from food or water 
for a considerable time. 
It lives in little bands of five or ten in number, each troop being under the 
command of an old male, and preserving admirable order among themselves. 
Their sentinel is ever on the watch, and at the slightest suspicious sound, 
scent, or object, the warning whistle is blown, and the whole troop make 
instantly for the highest attainable point. Their instinct always leads them 
upwards, an inborn “excelsior” being woven into their very natures, and as 
soon as they perceive danger they invariably begin to mount towards the 
line of perpetual snow. The young of this animal are produced in April, 
and in a few hours after their birth they are strong enough to follow their 
arent. 
The colour of the Ibex is a reddish brown in summer, and grey brown in 
winter ; a dark stripe passes along the spine and over the face, and the 
is TOM 
GoaT.—(Hircus Aigdgrus.) 
abdomen and interior faces of the limbs are washed with whitish grey. The 
horns are covered from base to point with strongly-marked transverse ridges, 
the number of which is variable, and is thought by some persons to denote 
the age of the animal. In the females the horns are not nearly so large nor 
so heavily ridged as in the male. ‘The Ibex is also known under the name 
of BOUQUETIN. 
THERE are an enormous number of varieties of the common domestic 
GOAT, many of them being so unlike the original stock from which they 
