206 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
enemy of trees, inquisitive, omnivorous, pugnacious. It is unsuited for the settled life of the 
English farm. Rich pasture makes it ill, and a good clay soil, on which cattle grow fat, kills it. 
But it is far from being disqualified for the service of some forms of modern civilisation by the 
survival of primitive habits. Though it cannot live comfortably in the smiling pastures of the 
low country, it is perfectly willing to exchange the rocks of the mountain for a stable-yard in 
town. Its love for stony places is amply satisfied by the granite pavement of a ‘mews,’ and 
it has been ascertained that goats fed in stalls and allowed to wander in paved courts and yards 
live longer and enjoy better health than those tethered even on light pastures. In parts of 
New York the city goats are said to flourish on the paste-daubed paper of the advertisements, 
which they nibble from the hoardings. It is beyond doubt that these hardy creatures are 
exactly suited for living in large towns; an environment of bricks and mortar and paving- 
stones suits them. Their spirits rise 
E Saya ) in proportion to what we should deem 
the depressing nature of their sur- 
roundings. They love to be tethered 
on a common, with scanty grass and 
| a stock of furze-bushes to nibble. A 
deserted brick-field, with plenty of 
broken drain-tiles, rubbish-heaps, and 
weeds, pleases them still better. 
Almost any kind of food seems to 
suit them. Not even the pig has so 
varied a diet as the goat; it consumes 
and converts into milk not only great ~ 
quantities of garden stuff which would 
otherwise be wasted, but also, thanks 
to its love for eating twigs and shoots, 
it enjoys the prunings and loppings 
of bushes and trees. In the Mont 
d’Or district of France the goats are 
fed on oatmeal porridge. With this 
diet, and plenty of salt, the animals 
are scarcely ever ill, and never suffer 
from tuberculosis; they will often 
give ten times their own weight of 
z : milk in a year.” 
BE OTA M IOI 2G nae Z The Kashmir shawls are made of 
ey aes the finest goats’ hair. Most of this 
BRITISH GOAT very soft hair is obtained from the 
A much-neglected breed in this country. Note the shape of this animal under-fur of goats kept in Tibet, and 
by the Kirghiz in Central Asia. Only 
a small quantity, averaging 3 ozs., is produced yearly by each animal. The wool is purchased 
by middlemen, and taken to Kashmir for manufacture. 
In India the goat reaches perhaps the highest point of domestication. The flocks are in 
charge of herd-boys, but the animals are so docile that they are regarded with no hostility 
by the cultivators of corn and cereals. Tame goats are also kept throughout Africa. The 
valuable ANGORA breed, from which “ mohair” is obtained,'is now domesticated in South Africa 
and in Australia. In the former country it is a great commercial success. The animals were 
obtained with great difficulty, as the Turkish owners did not wish to sell their best-bred 
goats; but when once established at the Cape, it was found that they proved better producers 
of mohair than when in their native province of Angora. The “clip” from their descendants 
steadily improves. 
