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T HE GOAT. 
HISTORY. 
Of the ruminating animals, the most varied in their forms, the most beautiful and swift, are the Deer and Antelope tribes; 
the former furnished with solid antlers of bone, which, in all the species but one, are confined to the male, and which fall off after 
the season of sexual intercourse; the latter possessed of hollow horns, like those of the Ox, the Sheep, and the Goat, enveloping 
permanent nuclei of bone proceeding from the forehead. Of the many species of Deer, one only, the Reindeer, an inhabitant of 
the northern glacial region, has been subjected to true domesticity, although individuals of the other species may be readily 
tamed to submission and dependence. Of the Antelope tribes, all the species remain in a state of liberty, apparently endowed 
with instincts which cause them to shun the dangerous vicinage of man. But the Antelopes, wild, timid, and indocile as they are, 
approach by insensible gradations to the forms of those animals which Nature has fashioned to subject themselves to the physical 
force and moral influence of our race. At one point they are connected with the massive forms of the Bovine group, at another 
they connect themselves with the Sheep, at another they pass into the Goats so nearly, that the line which separates the 
species scarcely forms a natural boundary. The chief distinction is in the bony nuclei of the horns, which, in the Antelopes, are 
hard and solid; in the Goats cellular, and communicating with the frontal sinuses. As the Antelopes pass into the Goats, so the 
latter pass into the Sheep. The internal organization of both the families is the same, they hear their young for the same period, 
have a similar sound of the voice, and they breed with one another, giving birth to a hybrid progeny partaking of the characters 
of the parents. Both are covered with a mixture of hair and wool, but in the Goats the true wool never predominates over the 
hair so as to form the essential covering of the body. The horns of the Goat are more straight and upright than those of the Sheep, 
though in some varieties of Goats the horns are spirally twisted, and in some varieties of Sheep, as in the short-tailed kinds of 
northern Europe, the horns are as straight as in the Goat. The Goat has generally bristly hairs on the breast, throat, and lower 
jaw, forming a distinct beard; but in 'some goats these are wanting, and in some of the ruder varieties of Sheep a beard appears, 
although it is never so fully developed as in the male of Goats. The Goat has a short tail, naked below, and carried more or less 
upright, but this character likewise exists in certain races of Sheep, as in those of the Zetland Islands, and generally in the other 
races of the extreme north of Europe. The skin of the Goat emits a peculiar musky odour, which, so far as is known, does not 
exist in any race of Sheep. Yet there are Goats in the countries of the East which are destitute of the hircine odour. It is said, 
indeed, that the Sheep is distinguished from the Goat by the former possessing interdigital glands; but this character is not ascer¬ 
tained to be universal; and it must, therefore, be admitted that all the characters of form employed to discriminate the two groups 
are technical and trivial. It is chiefly by the general aspect and habitudes of the species that we can separate them into genera. 
The Goat always approaches more in form and habits to the Antelope tribes than the Sheep, and may be regarded as the con¬ 
necting link between them. While the Sheep, in the state of domestication, is comparatively submissive and timid, the Goat is 
restless, bold, and independent, even when most enslaved. He is familiar and capricious, wanders at will from his fellows of the 
flock, and seeks the craggy summits of the mountains, where his native plants are to be found. He boldly faces the enemies that 
assail him, and manifests a greater confidence in his human protectors than the Sheep. 
From the earliest period of human societies, this wild and erratic creature seems to have been subjected to the power of man. 
We read of him as coeval with the Ox and the Sheep in those fair regions of the East, where the first dawn of civilization appears 
through the mists of time. He entered into the mythological systems of the first nations, and, by the earliest observers of the 
heavens, was appointed to be a sign in the Zodiac, with Aries and Taurus, his fellows in the service of man. The sacred 
writings continually refer to the Goat as forming, along with the Sheep, the Ox, and the Camel, the riches of the patriarchal 
families. He is one of the animals permitted by the laws of Moses to be used as human food, and he is ordained to be employed 
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