hose shawls which have for years been so famous and so costly. It takes
the produce of ten goats to make a shawl a yard and a half square; the
wool is bleached with rice flour, and the heavy taxes levied upon them,
makes these unequaled shawls keep up their high price. From the
earliest times we read of goat's hair being woven into cloth of varied
quality, especially in scriptural writings; and their skins have always
afforded valuable leather. That of the kid is of the finest quality.

All goats are hardy and wandering in their habits, and frequent those
places where no other animal could gain a footing. They exist in a feral
state in the mountainous parts of our island, and throughout Europe and
Western Asia. There is always much attachment between them and horses,
when domesticated. Some say it is in consequence of the strong odour
which is emitted by goats; and others because the horse, who so loves
companionship, delights in their vivacity. They vigorously defend their
young, as the following anecdote will shew. "A person having missed one
of his goats, when the flock returned at night, desired two boys to
watch all night, that she should not get into his young plantation, and
nibble off the tops of the trees. At daybreak the watchers looked for
the missing animal, and saw her on a pointed rock at some distance.
During the night she had given birth to a kid, and was then defending it
from a fox. The latter went round and round, but she turned her horns
upon him in all directions. The younger boy went to procure assistance,
and the elder hollowed and threw stones to frighten away the marauder.
Reynard looked at him, saw he was not strong enough to master him, and
suddenly tried to seize the kid. All three disappeared; and were found
at the bottom of a precipice; the goat's horns were stuck into the fox,
the kid lay stretched beside her, with a lacerated throat, and it was
supposed; when the death-wound was inflicted by the poor mother, the fox
staggered, and dragged her and her child with him in his fall." (Capt.
Brown's "Popular Natural History.")

A goat and her kids frequented a square in which I once lived, and were
often fed by myself and servants; a circumstance which would have made
no impression, had I not heard a thumping at the hall door, which arose
from the buttings of the goat when the food was not forthcoming, and
whose example was followed by the two little things. After a time this
remained unheeded,