Class I. GOAT. 43 



bark of young trees, on which account he is so 

 prejudicial to plantations, that it would be im- 

 prudent to draw him from his native rocks, ex- 

 cept some method could be devised to ob- 

 viate this evil. We have been informed, that 

 there is a freeholder in the parish of Traws- 

 fymiydd, in Meireonethshire, who hath, for seve- 

 ral years past, broken the teeth of his goats short 

 off with a pair of pincers, to preserve his trees. 

 This practice has certainly efficacy sufficient to 

 prevent the mischief, and may be recommended 

 to those who keep them for their singularity; 

 but ought by no means to be encouraged, when 

 those animals are preserved for the sake of their 

 milk, as the great salubrity of it as a medicine 

 arises from their promiscuous feeding. 



This quadruped contributes in various in- 

 stances to the necessities of human life j as food, 

 as physick, and as cloathing. The whitest wigs 

 are made of its hair ; for which purpose that of 

 the he-goat is most in request ; the whitest and 

 clearest is selected from that which grows on 

 the haunches, where it is longest and thickest ; 

 a good skin well haired is sold for a guinea, 

 though a skin of bad hue, and so yellow as to 

 baffle the barber's skill to bleach, will not fetch 

 above eighteen-pence, or two shillings. 



The Welsh goats are far superior in size, and 



