The Goats

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 odor of the males, and by 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 the 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 be kept in enclosed fields. For this reason they are not bred in any numbers in lands where agriculture is practised 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 sheep, while preserving its hardy habits in some districts, adapts itself to richer food, and acquires the habits as well as the digestion of domestication. The goat remains, as in old days, the enemy of trees, inquisitive, omnivorous, pugnacious. It is unsuited for the settled life of the 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 for 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 a granite pavement, and it 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 advertisements which they nibble from the bill-boards!

It is beyond doubt that these hardy creatures are exactly suited for living in large towns; 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 be tethered in places where they find 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 Mont Dore 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 three ounces, is produced yearly by each animal. The wool is purchased by middlemen, and taken to Kashmir for manufacture.

In India the goat 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 sell their best-bred goats; but when once established at the Cape, it was found that they proved better producers of mohair than when in their native province of Angora. The clip from their descendants steadily improves.

We now pass to consider various species of wild goats, all of which present very interesting features for our study.

The Turs

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 turs 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 fronts of the legs, which are blackish, and with horns springing from each side of the skull like half-circles. The males are thirty-eight 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 backward, 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, and a blackish line along the flank, dividing the white from the brown; also a blackish chest, and some gray on the flank.

In the Caucasus turs 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 snow-line. The Spanish species modifies its habits according to the ground on which it lives. Mr. E. N. Buxton found it in dense scrub, while on the Andalusian sierras it frequents bare peaks 10,000 feet high. In Spain tur are sometimes seen in flocks of from 100 to 150 each.

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 simitar-shaped horns, curving backward, 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 Southeastern Europe, it now inhabits parts of the Caucasus, the Armenian Highlands, Mount Ararat, and the Persian mountains as far east as Baluchistan. 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 such cover exists. The domesticated goat of Sweden is said to be certainly a descendant of this species.

The Ibex

Of the ibex, perhaps the best known of all the wild goats, several species, differing somewhat in size and in the form of their horns, are found in various parts of the Old World. Of these, the Arabian ibex inhabits the mountains of Southern Arabia, Palestine, and Sinai, Upper Egypt, and perhaps Morocco. The Abyssinian ibex is found in the high mountains of the country from which it takes its name. The Alpine ibex is now extinct in the Swiss Alps and Tyrol, but survives on the Piedmontese side of Monte Rosa. The Asiatic ibex is the finest of the group; its horns have been found to measure nearly fifty-five inches along the curve. This ibex inhabits the mountain ranges of Central Asia, from the Altai to the Himalayas, and the Himalayas as far as the source of the Ganges.

The King of Italy is the great preserver of the Alpine ibex, and has succeeded where the nobles of the Tyrol have failed. The animals are shot by driving them, the drivers being expert mountaineers. The way in which the ibex come down the passes and over the precipices is simply astonishing. One writer lately saw them springing down perpendicular heights of forty feet, or descending "chimneys" in the mountain-face by simply cannoning off with their feet from side to side. Young ibexes can be tamed with ease, the only drawback to their maintenance being the impossibility of confining them. They will spring on to the roof of a house, and spend the day there by preference, though allowed the run of all the premises. The kids are generally two in number; they are born in June.

The ibex was long one of the chief objects of the Alpine hunter. The Emperor Maximilian had a preserve of them in the Tyrol mountains, and he shot them with a crossbow when they were driven down. He tells us in his private hunting-book that he once shot an ibex at a distance of two hundred yards with a crossbow, after one of his companions had missed it with a gun, or "fire-tube." When away on an expedition in Holland, he wrote a letter to the wife of one of the most noted ibex-poachers on his domain, promising her a silk dress if she could induce her husband to let the animals alone. In the Himalayas the chief foes of the ibex are the snow-leopard and wild dog.

The Markhor

The very fine Himalayan goat of this name differs from all other wild species. The horns are spiral, like those of the kudu antelope and Wallachian sheep. It may well be called the king of the wild goats. A buck stands as much as forty-one inches at the shoulder, and the maximum measurement of the horns is sixty-three inches! It has a long beard and mane, and stands very upright on its feet. Besides the Himalayas, it haunts the mountains on the Afghan frontier. These goats keep along the line between the forest and snow, some of the most difficult ground in the hills. The horns are a much-prized trophy.

The Tahr

The tahr of the Himalayas is a very different-looking animal from the true goats, from which, among other characters, it is distinguished by the form and small size of the horns. The horns, which are black, spring in a high backward arch, but the creature has no beard. A buck stands sometimes as much as thirty-eight inches high at the shoulder. It has a long, rough coat, mainly dark stone-color in tint.

These animals live in the forest districts of the Middle Himalayas, where they are found on very high and difficult ground. General Donald Macintyre shot one standing on the brink of an almost sheer precipice. Down this it fell, and the distance in sheer depth was such that it was difficult to see the body even with glasses. The tahr is fairly common all along the higher Himalayan Range. Its bones are believed to be a sovereign cure for rheumatism, and are exported to India for that object. A smaller kind is found in the mountains of Eastern Arabia, where very few, even sportsmen, have yet attempted to shoot them.

The Nilgiri Tahr, or Nilgiri Ibex

Though not an ibex, the sportsmen of India early gave this name to the tahr of the Nilgiri and Anamalai hills. The Himalayan species is covered with long, shaggy hair; the South Indian, has short smooth brown hair.

"The ibex," says Hawkeye, the Indian sportsman, of this animal, "is massively formed, with short legs, remarkably strong fetlocks, and a heavy carcass, short and well ribbed up, combining strength and agility wonderful to behold. Its habits are gregarious, and the does are seldom met with separate from the flock or herd, though males often are. The latter assume, as they grow old, a distinctive appearance. The hair on the back becomes lighter, almost white in some cases, causing a kind of saddle to appear; and from that time they become known to the hunters as the saddlebacks of the herd, an object of ambition to the eyes of the true sportsman. It is a pleasant sight to watch a herd of ibex feeding undisturbed, the kids frisking here and there on pinnacles or ledges of rock and beetling cliffs where there seems scarcely safe hold for anything much larger than a grasshopper, the old mother looking calmly on. Then again, see the caution observed in taking up their resting or abiding places for the day, where they may be warmed by the sun, listening to the war of many waters, chewing the cud of contentment, and giving themselves up to the full enjoyment of their nomadic life and its romantic haunts. Usually, before reposing, one of their number, generally an old doe, may be observed gazing intently below, apparently scanning every spot in the range of her vision, sometimes for half an hour or more, before she is satisfied that all is well, but, strange to say, seldom or never looking up to the rocks above. Then, being satisfied on the one side, she follows the same process on the other, and eventually lies down calmly, contented with the precautions she has taken. Should the sentinel be joined by another, or her kid come and lie by her, they always lie back to back, in such a manner as to keep a good lookout to either side. A solitary male goes through all this by himself, and wonderfully careful he is; but when with the herd he reposes in security, leaving it to the female to take precautions for their joint safety." Is it not pleasanter to think of watching such innocent creatures, looking out for their own safety, than to think of hunting and killing them?

The Rocky Mountain Goat

America possesses only one species of wild goat, the place of this genus being taken in the southern part of the continent by the camel-like guanacos. The Rocky Mountain goat, the North American representative of the group, has very few of the characteristics of the European and Asiatic species. In place of being active in body and lively in temperament, it is a quiet, rather drowsy creature, able, it is true, to scale the high mountains of the Northwest and to live among the snows, but with none of the energetic habits of the ibex or the tahr. In form it is heavy and badly built. It is heavy in front and weak behind, like a bison. The eye is small, the head large, and the shoulders humped. It feeds usually on very high ground; but hunters who take the trouble to ascend to these altitudes find little difficulty in killing as many wild goats as they wish. These goats are most numerous in the ranges of British Columbia, where they are found in small flocks of from three or four to twenty. Several may be killed before the herd is thoroughly alarmed, possibly because at the high altitudes at which they are found man has seldom disturbed them. None of the domesticated sheep or goats of the New World are native to the continent of America. It is a curious fact, well worth studying from the point of view of the history of man, that, with the exception of the llama, the dog, and perhaps the guinea-pig, every domesticated animal in use from Cape Horn to the Arctic Ocean has been imported. The last of these importations is the reindeer, which, though the native species abounds in the Canadian woods, was obtained from Lapland and Eastern Asia.

When the first rush to Klondike was made, the miners were imprisoned and inaccessible during the late winter. The coming of spring was the earliest period at which communication could be expected to be restored, and even then the problem of feeding the transport animals was a difficult one. The United States government decided to try to open up a road from Alaska by means of sledges drawn by reindeer, and the Canadian government devised a similar scheme. Agents were sent to Lapland and to the tribes on the western side of Bering Sea, and deer, drivers, and harness obtained from both. The deer were not used for the Klondike relief expeditions by the Americans; but the animals and their drivers were kept in Alaska, native reindeer were caught, and were found very useful for carrying the mails in winter.

The Chamois

The goats are linked with the antelopes by the famous chamois, which is especially interesting because it makes its home among the snow-clad mountains of Europe. It is a pretty little creature about two feet in height, with a pair of short black horns which spring upright from the forehead, and are then sharply hooked, with the points directed backward. And its coat, strange to say, instead of becoming paler in winter grows darker, so that from brownish yellow it deepens into rich chestnut.

The chamois is one of the most active of all living animals, leaping from rock to rock, and skipping up and down steep cliffs, where it would seem quite impossible for it to obtain any foothold at all. It will often spring down, too, from a very great height, never seeming to injure itself and always alighting upon its feet. And as it is very sharp-sighted and exceedingly wary, a hunter finds the utmost difficulty in approaching, and very often for days together he never has the chance of obtaining a shot.

When a chamois notices any sign of danger, it utters a shrill whistling cry, on hearing which all the members of the herd instantly take to flight. There are generally from fifteen to twenty animals in each herd, consisting partly of does and partly of young bucks. The old bucks spend most of the year quite by themselves. But early in the autumn they rejoin the herds, drive away their younger rivals, and then fight fierce battles with one another for the mastery.

The young of the chamois are born in May or June, and are so strong and active that when they are only a day old they can follow their mother almost anywhere.

The Eland

This is the finest of the antelopes, and is a really magnificent animal, for it stands from five to six feet high at the shoulder, and sometimes an eland weighs nearly fifteen hundred pounds! Both the buck and the doe have spirally twisted horns, which are generally about two feet long, and there is a heavy dewlap under the throat. In color the animal is pale fawn, but sometimes the old males are bluish gray.

In former days the eland was spread all over Southern and Eastern Africa. But it has been so much hunted on account of its hide that it has quite disappeared from South Africa, and is fast disappearing elsewhere. There seems reason to fear that soon this splendid antelope will be altogether extinct. It lives for the most part in wooded plains, and is generally found in large herds, which spend the daytime hiding in the forests, and come out into the open country by night to graze and drink. In the desert districts, however, where water is scarce, they quench their thirst by feeding upon melons.

The eland is a difficult animal to hunt, for besides being very wary and very timid, it is often accompanied by a rhinoceros-bird, which gives it early warning of the approach of a foe. And, further, it is very swift of foot, so that it can only be ridden down by a good horse. As a rule it will never fight. But when a doe has calves with her, she will withstand the onset of dogs, and has even been known to impale them upon her horns.

The Kudu

This is another very fine antelope. It can easily be distinguished from the eland by the shape of the horns of the male, which are twisted like a corkscrew, while the female has none at all. Besides this, it has a white mark across its face, shaped something like the letter V, several white spots on its cheeks and throat, a white streak along its back, and several others running down its sides and hinder quarters. It stands rather more than four feet in height at the shoulder, and the horns are often more than three feet long.

The kudu is found all over Africa, from the Cape to Abyssinia, though it is now very rare in the extreme south. It does not live in herds, as a rule, but is generally found in pairs, which pass the day in dense thickets, and come out to graze in the evening. It is not very swift of foot, and can easily be run down by a man on horseback. But as it is chiefly found in the country infested by the terrible tsetse-fly, whose bite kills horses in a few days, it is generally hunted only with dogs.

The Gemsbok

Another very fine antelope is the gemsbok, which is found in the more desert regions of Southwestern Africa. It is remarkable for its very long straight horns, which sometimes measure nearly four feet from base to tip, and are such formidable weapons that the animal has been known to drive off even the lion. More than once, indeed, a lion and a gemsbok have been found lying dead together, the antelope having thrust his horns deep into the lion's body, and been quite unable to withdraw them.

What the gemsbok feeds upon is rather a mystery, for it is often found in districts where there is no vegetation except a little dry scrub. Yet it nearly always seems to be in good condition. And it is odder still to find that for months together sometimes it must go without drinking! Some hunters, indeed, have declared that they are quite positive that the animal never drinks at all, obtaining all the moisture it needs from small watermelons and certain bulbous roots.

The gemsbok is of about the same size as the kudu, and is gray in color above and white below. But there is a black streak across the face, while another streak, which is much broader, runs along the sides, dividing the gray of the upper parts from the white of the lower. This antelope is hunted on horseback, and is so swift and so enduring, that there is said to be no animal in Africa which is harder to overtake.

The Springbok

The most graceful and elegant of all the antelopes are the gazelles, of which we may take the springbok as an example.

In former days this was by far the most abundant of all the African game animals, and would sometimes be seen traveling from one district to another in enormous herds, covering the country as far as the eye could reach. So vast were these herds, indeed, and so closely did the animals march side by side together that sometimes a lion would be seen in their ranks marching along with them, quite unable to stop, or to make his escape, because of the pressure all round him!

The springbok, or "springbuck," owes its name to its marvelous activity, and to its curious habit of suddenly leaping straight up into the air. In this way it can easily spring to a height of eight or ten feet.

The springbok is easily tamed, and soon comes to know who are its friends. One of these animals was kept as a pet by a lady living at Klerksdorp, in South Africa, and would wander about the town by itself, not seeming to be in the least afraid of the passers-by, or even of the dogs. Every morning, too, it would cross the river, and go out upon the veldt to feed; and although it would mix freely with its wild companions during the day, it always left them in the evening and came home to sleep.

In height the springbok stands about two feet six inches, and it can easily be distinguished from all the other gazelles by the white streak which runs along the middle of the back. The horns are black, with a number of ridge-like rings running round them, and the color of the coat is dark cinnamon-yellow above and white beneath, with a blackish stripe on the flanks between the two.

Gnus

If the gazelles are the most graceful of all the antelopes, the gnus, also known as wildebeests, are certainly the most ungainly, their great broad heads, and very high shoulders giving them an extremely awkward appearance. Then the curved horns are very broad at the base, and are set so closely together on the forehead that they form a sort of helmet, like those of the Cape buffalo, while the muzzle is fringed with long bristles, and there is an upright mane of stiff hairs upon the neck. So that altogether the gnu cannot be considered as a handsome animal!

Two kinds of gnus are known, both of which are found in Southern and Eastern Africa. The commoner of the two is called the white-tailed gnu, because it has a long white tail, while the other, the brindled gnu, has a black one. Both animals stand about four feet six inches in height at the shoulder.

Gnus are very suspicious, very inquisitive, and very timid, and when they catch sight of a human being, they often behave in a most extraordinary way, prancing about, pawing the ground, capering on their hind legs, leaping into the air, and whisking their long tails about in the most absurd manner. Then some will chase the others round and round in circles. Next they will come charging on in a long line like cavalry, as though they meant to attack. And then, quite suddenly, the whole herd will wheel round, and dash off together, enveloped in a cloud of dust!

They are so inquisitive that a hunter has often attracted a gnu to within a very few yards just by tying a red handkerchief to the muzzle of his gun, and allowing it to flutter in the breeze like a flag!

Other antelopes that we should like to tell about have been described by travelers and hunters. The sable antelope of South Africa, for example, is regarded by Mr. Ernest Ingersoll as perhaps "the most admirable of all antelopes," the object of "an admiring enthusiasm among sportsmen" as well as naturalists. But as we cannot find space to describe all these interesting creatures, we must leave you to learn about some of them in books wholly designed to make them known.

CHAPTER XVI
GIRAFFES, DEER, CAMELS, ZEBRAS, ASSES, AND HORSES

Here we reach a number of animals with which you have more or less acquaintance, and about which you cannot fail to be interested in hearing any particulars that we may be able to set down for you.

Giraffes

These are the tallest of all living animals, for a full-grown male may stand eighteen or even nineteen feet in height. Just think of it! If one elephant were to stand upon another elephant's back a giraffe could look over them both.

This wonderful height is chiefly due to the great length of the neck. Yet there are only seven vertebræ, or joints of the spine, in that part of the body, just as there are in our own necks. But then each of these joints may be as much as a foot long! When the animal is hungry, its height is of very great use to it, enabling it to feed upon the leaves of trees which do not throw out branches near the ground. And in captivity, of course, its manger has to be put quite close to the roof of its stable.

Strange to say, the giraffe plucks each leaf separately by means of its tongue, which is very long indeed and very slender, and is prehensile at the tip, like the tail of a spider-monkey. So it can be coiled round the stem of a leaf in order to pull it from the branch. And sometimes at the zoo you may see a giraffe snatch flowers out of ladies' hats and bonnets by means of this curious tongue.

If a giraffe wants to feed upon grass instead of leaves, it straddles its front legs very widely apart, and then bends its long neck down between them. And it does just the same when it drinks.

The giraffe is a fast runner, and a horse must be very swift to overtake it. It runs in a most singular manner, with "a queer camel-like gallop," and throwing out the hind legs with a semicircular movement, while its long neck goes rocking backward and forward like that of a toy donkey, and the long tail switches up and down as regularly as if it were moved by clockwork. So a long line of giraffes all running away together must look very odd indeed.

You would think that giraffes would be very easily seen, even in the forest, wouldn't you? Yet every hunter tells us that as long as they are standing still it is almost impossible to detect them, since they look just like the stems and foliage of the trees, with the sunlight shining in patches between the leaves!

Giraffes are found in various parts of Africa, south of the Sahara, and two different varieties are known, that from South Africa being much the darker of the two, and having the spots much larger and closer together. A third kind, with five of the so-called horns on the head, has been recorded by Sir Harry Johnston.

The Okapi

A still more remarkable discovery, made in the same forest district by the same famous explorer, was that of the okapi, which is a very singular animal. Perhaps we can best describe it to you by saying that it is something like a giraffe, and something like an antelope, and something like a zebra, and something like an ox! The color of its coat is like that of a very red cow, there are zebra-like stripes on the fore and hind quarters, and the legs are cream-colored, while on the skull are faint traces of horns like those of the giraffe.

We do not as yet know much about the habits of this wonderful animal, except that it lives in the thickest parts of the forest, seems to go about in pairs, and to feed wholly on leaves and twigs.

The Deer

In some ways these animals are not unlike antelopes. But one great difference between the two is this. In the antelopes the horns are hollow, growing upon bony cores which spring from the skull, and remain all through the life of the animal. But in the deer they are solid, and are thrown off every year, fresh ones growing in their places in the course of four or five months. Then the material of which they are made is altogether different, for whereas the horns of the antelopes really consist of highly compressed hair, those of the deer are composed of lime, and are very much more like bone. On account of these differences horns of deer are better called antlers.

The way in which these antlers grow is very curious. For some little time after they are shed the animal is extremely timid, for he knows perfectly well that he has lost his natural weapons. So he hides away in the thickest parts of the forest, where none of his enemies are likely to find him. After a while, two little knobs make their appearance on the head, just where the horns used to be. These knobs are covered with a close furry skin, which is known as the velvet, and if you were to take hold of them you would find that they were quite hot to the touch. That is because the blood is coursing rapidly through them, and leaving particles of lime behind it as it goes. Day by day they increase in size, throwing out branches as they do so, until they are rather larger than the pair which were cast off. Then the blood-vessels close up, and the velvet becomes dry and begins to fall off, sometimes hanging down in long strips, which are at last rubbed off against the trees and bushes.

Reindeer and Caribou

A great many kinds of deer are found in different parts of the world, perhaps the most famous of all being the reindeer.

This is the only deer in which the does possess horns as well as the stags. It is found in the northern parts of Europe and Asia and also of North America, where it is called the caribou and generally lives in large herds. During the winter and spring these herds remain in the forests. But in summer they are so annoyed by flies that they make their way to the hills, ascending to such a height that their insect enemies cannot follow them, and there they remain until the autumn. A number of herds usually join together when they are migrating in this way, and the appearance of thousands upon thousands of the animals traveling slowly along, each with its antlers uplifted, has been compared to that of a moving forest of leafless trees.

In Siberia, Lapland, and Norway, large herds of reindeer are kept as we keep cattle, and are used as beasts both of draught and burden. A single reindeer can carry a weight of about 130 pounds upon its back, or draw a load of 190 pounds upon a sledge, and it so enduring that it will travel at the rate of from eight to ten miles an hour for twelve hours together.

"The caribou," says Mr. Ingersoll, "has never been utilized by any of the people of arctic America, although just across Bering Strait the same animal was kept in large herds by the Chuckchis of Siberia. The United States government has attempted to repair this deficiency by introducing large numbers of Lapp reindeer among the Alaskans, and the experiment is proving successful." (See also page 173.)

During the summer reindeer can obtain plenty of food, but in the winter they have to live upon a kind of white lichen, which grows in waste, dry places. Very often, of course, this is covered with snow, which the animals have to scrape away with their hoofs. But when a slight thaw is followed by a frost they find it very difficult to do this, and sometimes they actually perish from starvation.

The color of the reindeer varies slightly at different seasons of the year, the coat usually being sooty brown in summer and brownish gray in winter. The nose, neck, hind quarters, and lower parts of the body are always white or whitish gray.

The people of Lapland, Finland, and Siberia have for a long time domesticated reindeer, finding their flesh good to eat, and their hides, horns, and sinews valuable for making clothing and implements of various kinds. Their milk makes excellent cheese, which in those regions is an important article of food.

The Elk, or Moose

The elk, which is found in the same parts of the world as the reindeer, is a much larger animal. Indeed, it is the biggest of all living deer, a full-grown stag standing well over six feet in height at the withers, and sometimes weighing as much as twelve hundred pounds. It is not at all a graceful creature, for the neck is very short, and the head is held below the level of the shoulders, while the antlers are so enormously large that it hardly seems possible that the animal should be able to carry them.

One would think that when the elk was traveling through the forest these huge antlers would be constantly getting entangled among the branches of the trees. But the animal is able to throw them well back upon its shoulders, so that they do not really interfere with its progress in the least.

In America this animal is known as the moose, and is generally found in small parties, consisting of a buck, a doe, and their fawns of two seasons. During the summer they live near swamps or rivers, where there is plenty of rich, long grass. But as soon as winter comes on they retire to higher ground and spend the next few months in a small clearing in the midst of the thickest forest. These clearings are generally called moose-yards, and you might think, perhaps, that when a hunter had discovered one he would have no difficulty in shooting the animals. But they are so wary that it is almost impossible to approach them, either by day or by night, and many a hunter has followed them for weeks without obtaining a shot.

The Indians attract the moose within range by imitating the cry of the doe, which they do so cleverly that if a buck is within hearing he is sure to come up to the spot. Or they will rattle a moose's shoulder-bone against the bark of a tree so as to make a sound like the call of the buck, which any buck in the neighborhood is sure to take as a challenge to fight. For these animals are very quarrelsome creatures, and wage fierce battles with one another, sometimes using their antlers with such effect that both combatants die from their wounds.

The deer family is so large that we must content ourselves with briefly mentioning a few of its members. First we will speak of three of the Old World deer, and of these as they are seen in Great Britain, whose literature has so much to say of them.

The Red Deer

This is the noblest object of the chase in Europe. The only part of England in which it is now really wild is Exmoor, where it is still quite plentiful. But in many parts of the Scottish Highlands it is carefully preserved, large moorland districts being given up to it under the title of deer forests.

When the female deer has a little fawn to take care of, she generally hides it among very tall heather, pressing it gently with her nose to make it lie down. There it will remain all day long without moving, till she returns to it in the evening. But she is never very far away, and is always ready to come at once to its aid if it should be attacked by a fox or a wildcat.

The stag of this animal is a good deal larger than the doe, and may stand as much as four feet high at the shoulder, while its antlers may be more than three feet long. In color it is a bright reddish brown, which often becomes a good deal paler during the winter.

The Fallow Deer

This deer is not nearly so big as the red deer. It is never more than three feet in height, while you can also distinguish it by the fact that the antlers are flattened out at the tip into a broad plate, and that the coat is spotted with white.

This is the deer which is kept in so many English parks, where one may often see a herd of a hundred or more of the pretty, graceful animals moving about together.

There is always a "master" deer in each of these herds, who has won his post by fighting and overcoming all his rivals. He does not always remain with the herd, but often lives apart for weeks together, accompanied, perhaps, by three or four favorite does; and in his absence the herd is led by some of the younger bucks. But whenever he makes his appearance these make way for him, and no one disputes his sway until he becomes too old and infirm to hold his position any longer.

The male fallow deer is known by different names at different times of his life. In the first year he is called a "fawn," in the second year a "pricket," in the third a "sorrel," and in the fourth a "soare," while when he is five years old he is described as a "buck of the first lead," and when he is six as a "buck complete."

The Roebuck

This is quite a small animal, seldom exceeding twenty-six inches in height at the shoulder. In color it is reddish or grayish brown above and grayish white underneath, with a white patch on the chin and another round the root of the tail. The antlers stand nearly upright, and throw off one "tine," or spur, in front, and two more behind.

There is only one part of England where the roebuck is found wild, and that is Blackmoor Vale, in Dorsetshire. But it is common in many of the Scottish moors and forests. It is never seen in herds, like the fallow deer, but goes about in pairs, although when there are fawns they accompany their parents.

The roebuck sheds its antlers in December, and the new ones are fully developed by about the end of February. Although they are seldom more than eight or nine inches long they are really formidable weapons, more especially as the deer is very powerful in proportion to its size. The bucks are very quarrelsome creatures and fight most savagely with one another, while more than once they have been known to attack human beings and to inflict severe wounds before they could be driven away.

American Deer

Excepting the moose, caribou, and wapiti, often wrongly called an elk, found in the western United States and some parts of Canada, the deer of North and South America stand quite apart from those of the Old World, and are placed in a genus of their own. Usually the tail is long, and the brow-antler is always wanting. The most familiar species is the common American deer, of which the Virginia or white-tailed deer is the type. This deer is found in varying forms in both continents, and was regularly hunted by the ancient Mexicans with trained pumas.

The well-known Virginia deer found in Eastern North America, and believed to range as far south as Louisiana, stands a trifle over three feet in height, and weighs, clean, about one hundred and seventy-five pounds. The coloration is chestnut in summer, bluish gray in winter. The antlers are of good size, and usually measure from twenty to twenty-four inches in length. As a sporting animal the white-tailed deer is not popular. It has been described as "an exasperating little beast," possessing every quality which a deer ought not to, from the sportsman's point of view. "His haunts are river-bottoms, in choking, blinding bush, and his habits are beastly. No one could ever expect to stalk a white-tail; if you want to get one, you must crawl." Mr. Selous bagged one of these deer somewhat curiously. "He was coming," he writes, "through the scrubby, rather open bush straight toward me in a series of great leaps, rising, I think, quite four feet from the ground at every bound. I stood absolutely still, thinking to fire at him just as he jumped the stream and passed me. However, he came so straight to me that, had he held his course, he must have jumped on to or over me. But when little more than the width of the stream separated us—when he was certainly not more than ten yards from me—he either saw or winded me, and, without a moment's halt, made a prodigious leap sideways. I fired at him when he was in the air, and I believe quite six feet above the ground." The deer, an old buck with a good head, was afterward picked up dead. In different parts of America, as far south as Peru and Bolivia, various local races of this deer are to be found.

The Mule-Deer

The mule-deer is found in most parts of North America west of the Missouri, as far south as Southern California, stands about three feet four inches at the shoulder, and weighs over two hundred and forty pounds. It carries good antlers, measuring as much as thirty inches, and in color is tawny red in summer, brownish gray in winter. It is a far better sporting animal than the sneaking white-tailed deer, and affords excellent stalking. This deer is still abundant in many localities. It is commonly called "blacktail," but the true blacktail is a similar but smaller species confined to the Northern Pacific coast.

The Wapiti

This is the largest and finest of American deer, originally numerous everywhere west of the Appalachian Mountains, but now to be found only in the mountains of the Northwest. It is much like the European red deer, but very much larger, and is connected with it by a series of stags, known as the maral, shou, etc., inhabiting Central Asia from Persia to Kamchatka. It grazes like cattle, rather than browses; and in the fall gathers into herds, which formerly contained many thousands and spent the winter among sheltering hills.

Marsh-Deer

In South America are to be found several kinds of marsh-deer, of which the best known has its range from Brazil to the forest country of the Argentine Republic. The marsh-deer is almost equal in size to the red deer of Europe, but somewhat less stout of build; the coloring is bright chestnut in summer, brown in winter; the coat is long and coarse, as befits a swamp-loving creature; the antlers usually display ten points, and measure more than twenty inches.

The Pampas-Deer

This species, closely allied to the marsh-deer, is of small size, standing about two feet six inches at the shoulder. The antlers, usually three-pointed, measure no more than from twelve to fourteen inches in fine specimens. The pampas-deer is found from Brazil to Northern Patagonia.

Peruvian and Chilean Guemals

These are small deer, found on the high Andes, and are somewhat inferior in size to the Virginia deer. The males carry simple antlers forming a single fork, and measuring about nine inches. The coat, yellowish brown in hue, is coarse, thick, and brittle. The Chilean guemal is found also in most parts of Patagonia; unlike the guemal of Peru, which delights in altitudes of from 14,000 to 16,000 feet, it lives chiefly in deep valleys, thick forest, and even the adjacent plains, to which it resorts in winter.

Brockets

Of these, several species are found in South and Central America and Trinidad. They are small deer, having spike-like antlers and tufted crowns. The largest is the red brocket, found in Guiana, Brazil, and Paraguay, which stands twenty-seven inches at the shoulder. The body coloring is brownish red. Like most of the group, this brocket is extremely shy; but although fond of dense covert, it is found also in open patches. The pygmy brocket, a tiny dark-brown deerlet, less than nineteen inches in height, found in Central Brazil, is the smallest of these very small deer.

Pudus

Two other diminutive deer, known as pudus, closely allied to the brockets, are found in South America. These are the Chilean and Ecuador pudus, of which the former is only about thirteen inches in height, the latter about fourteen or fifteen inches. Little is known of the history and life habits of these charming little creatures, one of which, the Chilean species, has occasionally been seen in zoölogical gardens.

Camels

We now come to a remarkably interesting animal. First let us tell you how wonderfully the camel is suited to a life in the desert.