THE MOUNTAIN GOAT 
115 
on one occasion an individual whose “partner” 
had been shot deliberately sat down, dog-like, 
thirty yards away and watched the hunter skin 
and cook a portion of his mate. In Idaho two 
miners killed a large Mountain Goat with an axe. 
While exploring in Alaska, unarmed, a member 
of the United States Geological Survey was once 
vigorously attacked by an old male goat, which 
attempted to drive him from a narrow mountain 
path. 
The White Goat is quite as odd in appearance 
as in mind and habit. Judging merely from its 
appearance an observer would be justified in 
considering it a slow, clumsy creature, safe only 
upon level ground. Instead of being so, it is 
the most expert and daring rock-climber of all 
American hoofed animals. Its hoofs are small, 
angular and very compact, and consist of an 
ingenious combination of rubber-pad inside and 
knife-edge outside, to hold the owner equally 
well on snow, ice or bare rock. 
Professor L. L. Dyche declares that Mountain 
Goats will cross walls of rock which neither man, 
dog nor mountain sheep would dare attempt to 
pass. He has seen them cross the face of a preci- 
pice of apparently smooth rock, to all appearances 
entirely devoid of ledges or shelves of any kind, 
and so nearly perpendicular that it seemed an 
impossibility for any creature with hoofs to 
maintain a footing upon it. And yet, the goats 
not only passed safely across, but they did it 
with perfect composure, frequently looking back, 
and turning around whenever they saw fit to do 
so. 
In general outline this animal has the form of 
a pigmy American bison, and were its pelage 
dark brown instead of pure white, the external 
resemblance would indeed be striking. It has 
high shoulders, low hind-quarters, stocky legs, 
a thick-set body, and shaggy pelage. Its head 
is carried low, the crown seldom rising above 
the upper line of the shoulders and back, and the 
face is too long for beauty. The horns are so 
small, short and severely plain they are neither 
beautiful nor imposing. 
The weight of this animal is about that of the 
Virginia deer. The shoulder height of a good 
average .size male is 37 inches, length of head and 
body, 66 inches, tail, 4 inches, and girth 51 inches 
(L. L. Dyche). The females average about one- 
fourth smaller. Except in length and color of 
pelage the Mountain Goat is clad after the style 
of the musk-ox. Next to the skin it wears a 
dense coat of fine wool, through and far beyond 
which .grows a long, outside thatch of coarse hair. 
When free from dirt, both these coats are yellow- 
ish-white, and contain no patches of color. Be- 
hind each horn is a peculiar bare patch of black, 
oily skin, the size of a half-dollar. The horns 
are small, smooth, very sharp-pointed, jet black, 
and the longest on record measure 1 1 1- inches. 
The cannon bone is proportionately the shortest 
to be found in any large ungulate. 
Professor Dyche thinks this animal is not 
likely to be exterminated very soon, chiefly be- 
cause of its inaccessibility, its lack of beauty as 
a trophy, and the expenditure of time, money 
and muscle that is necessary to win within gun- 
shot of it. Its flesh is so musky and dry that it 
is not palatable to white men save when they 
are exceedingly hungry, and its skin has no com- 
mercial value. Nevertheless, in the United 
States, the White Goat has been so much sought 
by sportsmen and others who like difficult hunt- 
ing that now it is found only in Washington, 
Idaho and northwestern Montana. Northward 
of our boundary, it is scattered very thinly, and 
at long intervals, throughout British Columbia 
and Alaska as far as the head of Cook Inlet. 
In 1900 a new species was discovered on Cop- 
per River, Alaska, and named Kennedy’s 
Mountain Goat. It is marked very plainly by 
horns that are no longer, but are more slender, 
more strongly ringed, and spread farther at the 
tips than those of the original species. 
Up to the year 1903, only four white goats 
had ever been exhibited alive in the United 
States east of the Rocky Mountains. Of these, 
two were shown at Boston in 1899, and two are 
now alive in the Philadelphia Zoological Gar- 
dens. As might be expected, it is a difficult mat- 
ter to keep such creatures alive and in good health 
on the Atlantic coast. In 1902 a very fine adult 
male specimen was on exhibition in the London 
Gardens. 
PRONG-HORNED ANTELOPE FAMILY. 
Antilocapridae. 
This unique Family of one species and one 
subspecies, must not be confused nor in any way 
connected with the large and important group of 
African antelopes, which contains a grand array 
