Though the dividing-line between the Sheep and Goats is very indistinct, some differences are of general application. The goats are distinguished by the unpleasant "hircine" odor of the males, and by the beards on the chins of the same sex, by the absence of glands in the hind feet, which sheep possess, and by certain variations in the formation of the skull. The difference between temperament of the sheep and goats is very curious and persistent, showing itself in a marked way, which affects their use in domestication to such a degree that the keeping of one or the other often marks the owners as possessors of different degrees of civilization. Goats are restless, curious, adventurous, and so active that they cannot by kept in enclosed fields. for this reason they are not bred in any numbers of lands where agriculture is practiced on modern principles; they are too enterprising and too destructive. Consequently the goat is usually only seen in large flocks on mountain pastures and rocky, uncultivated ground, where the flocks are taken out to feed by the children.
On the high alps, In Greece, on the apennines, and in Palestine the goat is a valuable domestic animal. the milk, butter, and cheese, and also the flesh of the kids, are in great esteem. But wherever the land is enclosed, and high cultivation attempted, the goat is banished, and the more docile and controllable sheep takes its place. In Syria the goat is perhaps more docile and better understood as a dairy animal than elsewhere in the east. The flocks are driven into Damascus in the morning; and instead of a milk-cart calling, the flock itself goes round the city, and particular goats are milked before the doors of regular customers.
The EUROPEAN GOAT is a very useful animal for providing milk to poor families in large towns. The following account of its present use was recently published: "The sheep, while preserving its hardy habits in some districts, as on Exmoor, in Wales, and the Highlands, adapts itself to richer food, and acquires the habits as well as the digestion of domestication. The goats remains,as in old days, the enemy of trees, inquisitive, omnivorous, pugnacious. It is unsuited for the settled life of the English farm. Rich pasture makes it ill, and a good clay soil, on which cattle grow fat, kills it. But it is far from being disqualified or the service of some forms of modern civilization by the survival of primitive habits. Though it cannot live comfortably in the smiling pastures of the low country, it is perfectly willing to exchange the rocks of the mountain for a stable-yard in town. Its love for stony places is amply satisfied by the granite pavement of a 'mews', and has been ascertained that goats fed in stalls and allowed to wander in paved courts and yards live longer and enjoy better health than those tethered even on light pastures. in parts of new York the city goats are said to flourish on the paste-daubed paper of the advertisement, which they nibble from the hoardings. It is beyond doubt that these handy creatures are exactly suited for living in a large town; an environment of bricks and mortar and paving stones suits them. their spirits rise in proportion to what we should deem the depressing nature of their surroundings. They love to b tethered on a common, with scanty grass and a stock of furze-bushes to nibble. A deserted brick-field, with plenty of broken drain-tiles, rubbish-heaps, and weeds, pleases them still better. Almost any kind of food seems to suit them. Not even the pig has so varied a diet as the goat; it consumes and converts into milk not only great quantities of garden stuff which would otherwise be wasted, but also, thanks to its love for eating twigs and shoots, it enjoys the prunings and loppings of bushes and trees. In the Mon d'Or district of France the goats are fed on oatmeal porridge. With this diet, and plenty of salt, the animals are scarcely ever ill, and never suffer from tuberculosis; they will often give ten times their own weight of milk in a year".
The kashmir shawls are made of the finest goats' hair. Most of this very soft hair is obtained from the under-fur of goats kept in Tibet, and by the Kirghiz in central Asia. Only a small quantity, averaging 3 ozs., is produced yearly by each animal. The wool is purchased by middlemen, and taken to kashmir for manufacture.
in India the goats reaches perhaps the highest point of domestication. The flocks are in charge of herd-boys, but the animals are so docile that they are regarded with no hostility by the cultivators of corn and cereals. Tame goats are also kept throughout Africa. The valuable ANGORA breed, from which "mohair" is obtained, is now domesticated in South Africa and in Australia. In the former country it is a great commercial success. The animals were obtained with great difficulty, as the Turkish owners did not wish to seal their best-bred goat; but when once established at the Cape, it was found that they proved better producers of mohairs than when in their native province of Angora. The "clip" from their descendants steadily improves.
WILD GOATS
THE TUR
In the Caucasus, both east and west, in the Pyrenees, and on the South Spanish sierras three fine wild goats, with some features not unlike the burhal sheep, are found. They are called TUR by the Caucasian mountaineers. The species found in the East Caucasus differs from that of the west of the range, and both from that of Spain. The EAST CAUCASIAN TUR is a massive, heavy animal, all brown in color (except on the front of the legs, which are blackish), and with horns springing from each side of the skull like half-circles. The males are 38 inches high at the shoulder. The short beard and tail are blackish, and there is no white on the coat. The WEST CAUCASIAN TUR is much lighter in color than that of the East Caucasus, and the horns point backwards, more like those of the ibex, though set on the skull at a different angle. the SPANISH TUR has the belly and inner sides of the legs white, an a blackish line along the flank, dividing the white from the brown; also a blackish chest, and some grey on the flank.
In the Caucasus the tur are found on the high crags above the snow line in summer, whence they descend at night to feed on patches of upland grass; but the main home of the tur by day is above the snowline. The Spanish species modifies its habits according to the ground on which it lives.
THE PERSIAN WILD GOAT
The original of our domesticated goat is thought by some to be the PASANG, or PERSIAN WILD GOAT. It is a fine animal, with large scimitar-shaped horns, curving backwards, flattened laterally, and with knobs on the front edge at irregular intervals. It is more slender in build than the tur, light brown in general color, marked with a black line along the nape and back, black tail, white belly, blackish shoulder-stripe, and a black line dividing the hinder part of the flank from the white belly. formerly found in the islands of South-eastern Europe, it now inhabits parts of the Caucasus, the Armenian Highlands, Mount Ararat, and the Persian mountains as far east as Bluchistan. A smaller race is found in Sind. it lives in herds, sometimes of considerable size, and frequents not only the high ground, but the mountain forests and scrub, where other such cover exists. The domesticated goat of Sweden is said to be certainly a descendant of this species.
