The Common Goat inhabits wild and mountainous regions in a state of semi-wildness, seeming to have little regard either for the protection or the neglect of people resident in its vicinity; but although not cared for, like its not very distant relative, the Sheep, it is by no means without its value. The Goat affords milk in considerable abundance; its hair, though more harsh than wool, is useful in the manufacture of various kinds of stuffs, and its skin is more valuable than that of the sheep. The Goat has more intelligence than the Sheep, and soon becomes familiar and attached; it is light, active, and less timid than the Sheep; it is capricious and loves to wander, to climb steep mountains, sleeping frequently on the point of a rock or the edge of a precipice. It is robust, and will feed on almost any plant. It does not, like the Sheep, avoid the mid-day heat, but sleeps in the sunshine, and exposes itself willingly to its full glare. It is not alarmed by storms, but appears to suffer from a great degree of cold. THE IBEX. The Ibex combines with the characters of the Goat the agility and fleetness of the Antelopes. “All readers of natural history,” says Col. Markham, “are familiar with the wonderful climbing and saltatory powers of the Ibex; and although they cannot (as has been described in print) make a spring and hang on by the horns until they gain a footing, yet in reality for such heavy animals they get over the most inaccessible-looking places in an almost miraculous manner. Nothing seems to stop them nor to impede their progress in the least. To see a flock, after being fired at, take a distant line across country, which they often do over all sorts of seemingly impassable ground, now along the naked surface of an almost perpendicular rock, then across a formidable landslip or an inclined plane of loose stones or sand, which the slightest touch sets in motion both above and below, dividing into chasms to which there seems no possible outlet, but instantly reappearing on the opposite side, never deviating in the slightest from their course, and at the same time getting over the ground at the rate of something like fifteen miles an hour, is a sight not to be easily forgotten.” The Ibex inhabits the most inaccessible summits of the loftiest mountains of Europe, Asia and Africa, and may frequently be seen bounding from rock to rock among the highest peaks of their snow-clad grandeur, climbing cliffs with the activity of a Bird, and disporting itself in regions unapproachable by any other quadruped. THE BEZOARGOAT. [Illustration: Goat Defending His Family from a Lynx.]