ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT. 
131 
The Rocky Mountain Goat wanders over the most precipitous rocks, 
and springs with great activity from crag to crag, feeding on the plants, 
grasses, and mosses of the mountain sides, and seldom or never descends 
to the luxuriant valleys, as the Big-Horn does. This Goat indeed resembles 
the wild Goat of Europe, or the chamois, in its habits, and is very difficult 
to procure. Now and then the hunter may observe one browsing on the 
extreme verge of some perpendicular rock almost directly above him, far 
beyond gun-shot, and entirely out of harm’s way. At another time, after 
fatiguing and hazardous efforts, the hungry marksman may reach a spot 
from whence his rifle will send a ball into the unsuspecting Goat ; then 
slowly he rises from his hands and knees, on which he has been creeping, 
and the muzzle of his heavy gun is “ rested” on a loose stone, behind which 
he has kept his movements from being observed, and now he pulls the fatal 
trigger with deadly aim. The loud sharp crack of the rifle has hardly 
rung back in his ear from the surrounding cliffs when he sees the Goat in 
its expiring struggles reach the verge of the dizzy height : a moment of 
suspense and it rolls over, and swiftly falls, striking perchance here and 
there a projecting point, and with the clatter of thousands of small stones 
set in motion by its rapid passage down the steep slopes which incline 
outward near the base of the cliff, disappears, enveloped in a cloud of 
dust in the deep ravine beneath ; where a day’s journey would hardly bring 
an active man to it, for far around must he go to accomplish a safe descent, 
and toilsome and dangerous must be his progress up the gorge within 
whose dark recesses his game is likely to become the food of the ever 
prowling wolf or the solitary raven. Indeed cases have been mentioned 
to us in which these Goats, when shot, fell on to a jutting ledge, and there 
lay fifty or a hundred feet below the hunter, in full view, but inaccessible 
from any point whatever. 
Notwithstanding these difficulties, as portions of the mountains are not 
so precipitous, the Rocky Mountain Goat is shot and procured tolerably 
easily, it is said, by some of the Indian tribes, who make various articles 
of clothing out of its skin, and use its soft woolly hair for their rude 
fabrics. 
According to Sir John Richabdson, this animal has been known to the 
members of the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay Companies from the first esta- 
blishment of their trading posts on the banks of the Columbia River and in 
New Caledonia, and they have sent several specimens to Europe. The wool 
being examined by a competent judge, under the instructions of the Wer- 
nerian. Society of Edinburgh, was reported to be of great fineness and fully 
an inch and a half long. “ It is unlike the fleece of the common sheep, 
which contains a variety of different kinds of wool suitable to the fabrica- 
