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

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