136 



THE WILD GOAT 



Though I have kept and petted the Jharal and the Nayaur for years, 

 I could never, with the dry Linnean aid of Shaw, have affirmed that the 

 former was a goat, and the latter a sheep, but for the moral charac- 

 teristics of the genera furnished me by the graphic Buffon ! I have 

 mentioned that the Jharal is a saucy, confident, capricious, clambering 

 animal, whose freaks of humour and of agility are equally surprising. 

 The Nayaiu\ on the contrary, is a staid, simple, helpless thing, which 

 never dreams of transgressing the sobriety of a sheep's nature. Like the 

 Jharal, it is easily tamed, but requires more care to acclimatise it in the 

 valley. I have tried in vain to breed from the Nayaur. Comparing the 

 figure and general aspect of the two animals, it can merely be noted, in the 

 way of distinction, that the Jharal is the more compactly framed, and 

 stands straighter and firmer on his legs, than the Nayaur ; and that the 

 former has an arch genuinely goatish expression of the face — the latter, 

 the proverbially simple look of the sheep. 



As compared with the tame sheep, it is very obvious to remark that 

 the Nayaur has a fuller, shorter body; much longer limbs; a longer 

 neck; and ears and tail of a more deer-like character. 



In the ordinary state of rest the Nayaur, instead of the straight back, 

 neck, and limbs of the tame sheep, has the arched back, bowed neck 

 and stooping hind quarters of the feet, and graceful antelopine and cervine 

 races. There is a great drop from the shoulders; and the withers are 

 lower than the croup : the head, as in the Jharal, but rather more rec- 

 tilinearly tapered from above and below : ears, tail, and hoofs, likewise, as 

 in the Jharal ; but the hoofs longer and less compact, and the ears larger. 



The coat or covering of the Nayaur, as nearly as possible, resembles 

 that of the Chiru or Antelope Hoclgsonii ; the most careful comparison 

 only enabling one to say that the latter, from being somewhat thicker. 



