CLIMBING ABILITIES val I have never had the luck to watch any of the true goats climb, such as markor and ibex, but there can be no other living animal the superior of our goat in this respect. Several times I have driven goats to precipices that appeared to be utterly unclimbable for any living animal, but they invariably succeeded in going up them without much difficulty, and even kids followed their mothers with just as much ease. Sheep have the reputa- tion of being good at climbing, but they are mere novices at the game compared with goats. I have never seen a sheep (unless he has had a very bad fright) do any climbing that an experienced mountaineer could not do with comparative ease, and only once or twice have I seen sheep, even when hard pressed, go to bad bluffs. But with goats it is another matter; they will scale vertical walls with a dexterity that is marvellous ; they will stand on a minute ledge, so small that it cannot be discerned even with glasses ; they will balance on some tiny projec- tion and gaze down a sheer drop of a thousand feet or more, the thought of which would send shudders through a steeple-jack, and all this, just in the course of an ordinary constitutional, to keep their eyes and feet in shape. Then the way they will turn round on a narrow ledge is incredible ; as long as it is wide enough for them to plant all four feet together they will make the turn in a leisurely way, not with a sharp twist or acrobatic jump, but by careful movement of the feet and perfect balancing. Of real fear the goat has none. If you catch one away from a place of safety he will blunder away because he knows the odds are too much against him, but when once he gets to the bluffs, if he does not feel like climbing high, you cannot frighten him into doing so, at any rate not an old billy. Several times I have been able to follow goats that had taken refuge on ledges or in chimneys and stopped there, though they could have gone on higher up without any trouble. When I got very close to them they showed plenty of signs of battle, but not of fright ; they would stand and stamp their feet, the hair on their backs would stand up like that of an angry dog, they Joe a ca ln EB ee Stee ita ir a i MR nat i en fits cen ~- = Sa ees ——— RRA Rae tit