MAMMALIA. 269 
presented to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, was submitted to a competent 
judge, who reported that “ the wool, which forms the chief covering of the skin, 
is fully an inch and a half long, and is of the very finest quality. It is unlike the 
fleece of the common sheep, which contains a variety of different kinds of wool 
suitable to the fabrication of articles very dissimilar in their nature, and requires 
much care to distribute them in their proper order. The fleece under considera- 
tion is wholly fine. That on the forepart of the skin has all the apparent qualities 
of wool : on the back part it very much resembles cotton. The whole fleece is 
much mixed with hairs, and on those parts where the hairs are long and pendant, 
there is almost no wool.” In consequence of this report, a suggestion was made 
to the Highland Society of the advantage likely to accrue from the introduction 
into Scotland of an animal bearing so valuable a fleece. The Hudson’s Bay 
Company alone possess the power of effecting this patriotic design. Very lately 
that Company presented a perfect specimen of the goat to the Zoological Society, 
from which the accompanying etching was executed by Landseer. From the 
circumstance of this animal bearing wool, it has been occasionally termed a sheep 
by the voyagers and even by naturalists; and as it has often gone by the same 
name with the Rocky Mountain sheep of the following article, some little confusion 
has crept into the accounts of their habits which have been published from the 
reports of the traders. 
_ The Rocky Mountain goat inhabits the most lofty peaks of the range, from 
whence it derives its English appellation, seldom descending so near the low 
country as the Rocky Mountain sheep does. Mr. Drummond saw no goats on 
the eastern declivity of the mountains near the sources of the Elk River, where the 
sheep are numerous, but he learnt from the Indians that they frequent the steepest 
precipices, and are much more difficult to procure than the sheep. Their 
manners are said to resemble greatly those of the domestic goat. The exact 
limits of the range of this animal have not been ascertained, but it probably 
extends from the 40th to the 64th or 65th degree of latitude. It is common 
on the elevated part of the Rocky Mountain range that gives origin to four great 
tributaries to as many different seas, viz. the Mackenzie, the Columbia, the 
Nelson, and the Missouri Rivers. ' 
The fine wool which the animal produces grows principally on the back and 
hips, and is intermixed with long coarse hair. Its flesh is hard and dry, and is 
little esteemed*. The Indians make caps and saddles of its skin. I have 
followed Dr. Harlan in ranking this quadruped in the genus Capra, and have 
* Mr. Donald M‘Kenzie says, its flesh has a musky flavour—Hasr an, fauna, p. 258. 
