The white or Rocky Mountain goat shares with the musk-ox the honor of being the least known of the game animals of North America and descriptions of it written even as recently as ten years ago are valueless, as in many cases this animal is confused with white mountain sheep and even with deer. The explanation of this lack of knowledge lies in the extremely remote and inaccessible habitat of the goat, which begins in the northwestern United States, among the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains and of the coast ranges and extends north, through British Columbia, into Alaska. The material in most natural histories, relating to this animal, is scanty and based on very inadequate information, since the opportunity to see and hunt it has not been granted to many. In captivity, we have had, on the Atlantic coast, only eight immature specimens, two in Boston in 1899, two in Philadelphia in 1893, and the four now (1905) living in the New York Zoological Park. One well grown male is living at this time in the London Zoological Garden. As a result of this scarcity of direct knowledge, many myths have gathered around this mountain dweller, leading, as usual in our North American game animals, to an abundance of inappropriate names. The name "goat" is objectionable, but will have to stand until some better term can be found. The Stoney Indians in Alberta use the name "Waputehk," and in Chinook, the universal jargon of the Northwest, the goat is called Snow Mawitch (white deer). Neither of these terms are likely to become common. It is not a goat, nor even closely related to them, but is the sole representative on this continent, of a very aberrant group of so-called mountain antelopes, known to science as the _Rupicaprinæ_, a Subfamily of the _Bovidæ_. THE MOUNTAIN ANTELOPES. The _Rupicaprinæ_ comprise five widely scattered genera, extending from the Pyrenees of Spain, to the Rocky Mountains of the western United States, as enumerated below. [Illustration: GOAT COUNTRY ON THE SUMMIT OF THE MAIN ROCKIES EAST OF THE MAIN ROCKIES, INDICATING CHARACTER OF COUNTRY WHERE GOAT, SHOWN ON PAGE 14, WAS SHOT.] In western Europe we find first the chamois (_Rupicapra_), known in the Spanish Sierras and Pyrenees as the izard, and extending eastward through the Alps and Carpathians as far as the Caucasus. Throughout all this range only one species is recognized. The next genus of this group is the goral (_Cemas_), with four species ranging throughout the Himalayas and parts of China, into Amurland. In Tibet we have the third and decidedly most aberrant member of the _Rupicaprinæ_, the takin (_Budorcas_), the horns of which suggest those of the gnu. Only one species of this genus is known.