Most captive ruminants struggle frantically when put into crates for shipment. White goats very rarely do so. They recognize the inevitable, and accept it with resignation. Captive antelopes and deer often kill themselves by dashing madly against wire fences, but I never knew a white goat to injure itself on a fence. Many a wild animal has died from fighting its shipping crate; but no wild goat ever did so. A white goat will walk up a forty-five degree plank to the roof of his house, climb all over it, and joyously perch on the peak; but no mountain sheep or deer of ours ever did so. _They are afraid!_ Only the Himalayan tahr equals the white goat in climbing in captivity, and it will climb into the lower branches of an oak tree, just for fun. Of all the ruminant animals I know intimately, the white mountain goat is the philosopher-in-chief. Were it not so, how would it be possible for him to live and thrive, and attain happiness, on the savage and fearsome summits that form his chosen home? We must bear in mind that the big-horn does not dare to risk the haunts and trails of his white rivals. Hear the Cragmaster of the Rockies: [Illustration with caption: THE STEADY-NERVED AND COURAGEOUS MOUNTAIN GOAT He refused to be stampeded off his ledge by men or dog. Photographed at eight feet by John M. Phillips (1905).] "On dizzy ledge of mountain wall, above the timber-line I hear the riven slide-rock fall toward the stunted pine. Upon the paths I tread secure no foot dares follow me, For I am master of the crags, and march above the scree." In other chapters I have referred to the temperament and logic of this animal, the bravest mountaineer of all America. THE DEER.--In nervous energy the species of the Deer Family vary all the way from the nervous and hysterical barasingha to the sensible and steady American elk that can successfully be driven in harness like a horse. As I look over the deer of all nations I am bound to award the palm for sound common-sense and reasoning power to the elk. A foolishly nervous deer seldom takes time to display high intelligence. Naturally we dislike men, women, children or wild animals who are always ready to make fools of themselves, stampede, and disfigure the landscape. The Axis Deer is quietly sensible,--so long as there is no catching to be done. Try to catch one, and the whole herd goes off like a bomb. Many other species are similar. No wild deer could act more absurdly than does the axis, the barasingha and fallow, even after generations have been bred in captivity.