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Show 1875.] WILD GOAT OF ASIA MINOR. 463 abundant and the mountains are low, they often come down even in fine weather almost to the sea-level. Gmelin (Reise d. Russ. Th. iii.) mentions that the iEgagrus lives in company with the Eastern Sheep (Oris gmelini?). Like all the Ibex tribe the iEgagrus is extremely shy and wary at ordinary times, though, as is the case with many other animals, they may be easily approached during the rutting-season. I was told that they were often brought within shot at that time by the hunter secreting himself and rolling a few small stones down the rocks. When suddenly disturbed they utter a short angry snort and make off at a canter rather than a gallop. Though their agility among the rocks is marvellous, they do not, according to Mr. Hutton (Calcutta Journ. vii. p. 524), possess sufficient speed to enable them to escape from the dogs which are employed to hunt them in the lowlands of Afghanistan. It is interesting to see how, when danger is dreaded, the party is always led by the oldest male, who advances with great caution and carefully surveys the suspected ground before the others are allowed to follow. Their food consists principally of mountain-grasses, shoots of different small species of oak and cedar, and various berries. The young are dropped in May, and are one or two (Kotschy says sometimes three) in number. The horns appear verv early, as shown in a kid of the year procured in the beginning of January. It is to be regretted that we were not able to ascertain the sex of this specimen, the body having been partially eaten by Vultures before we could secure it. No doubt many of the young are destroyed by the larger raptores, and a certain number by the Bears, Panthers, Lynxes, and Wolves ; in addition to these ordinary foes, the Wild Goat suffers much from ticks and from an insect pest in the form of a peculiar bot, which locates itself in the frontal sinuses and the cavities of the horns, one of which, when cut open, was discovered to be entirely filled with these larvae. Dr. Cobbold, to whom I forwarded some of these insects, writes, "The QHstrus larvae placed in m y hands for examination appear to be totally distinct from any form which has come under m y notice;" he also thinks that great distress must be caused by the ingress and egress of the bots in question. Herr Kotschy says that the Wild Goat is also infested by another parasite (Reise in cilisch. Tau. p. 258), which he describes as " not a tick ; it was 3 lines long, brown in colour, and with a rounded abdomen, and escaped quickly from the dead animal into the beard of the hunter who was skinning it"*. The external characteristics of the iEgagrus having been already so well described by Dr. Brandt and others, I will only remark that its °eneral colour undergoes the change usual to that class of animal, becomiug lighter in summer, that there is a considerable variation in the depth of the ground-colour and the markings and the extent of the latter in various individuals, that the markings of the females and young are always much fainter than in the adult males, and that the females are always quite beardless. It is * The existence of (Estri lame in C. agagrus is recorded by Dr. Murie (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 80). |