WILD GOAT. 
35 
tops are for ever hid in snow, and whose sides af- 
ford but a scanty herbage, seem badly calculated for 
the support of animal life ; yet, as the Almighty al- 
ways adapts the manners of his creatures to their 
means, the wild goat, who is destined to live in the 
mountains, finds them clothed with a sufficiency to 
satisfy his wants. 
The country of the Grisons, the Carpathian and 
Pyrenean mountains, and the Rhaetian Alps, give 
birth to abundance of goats, which are excessively 
wild, and frequently bound from rock to rock, or 
fling themselves down the steepest precipices, and yet 
escape unhurt. The object of our present attention 
is said by M. Buffon to be the stock from whence 
our domestic goat is descended, as it strongly re- 
sembles that animal in the shape of its body, though 
it differs considerably in the size of its horns, which 
are much larger. They are bent backwards, and 
full of knots ; and it is asserted that the creature 
adds one to the number every year of its life. The 
ibex has a small head, adorned with a dusky beard; 
his coat is thick and warm : it is of a brown colour, 
with a black streak running along the top of the 
back. The belly, and back of the thighs, are of a 
tawny white : a thick and strong body, with mus- 
cular legs and very short hoofs, completes the figure 
of the animal. The females differ in being less than 
the males, in having shorter horns, and but few knobs 
on the upper surface. 
Wild goats assemble in small flocks seldom ex- 
ceeding fifteen in number : as soon as the sun rises, 
