DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0293
XXXIX.]
THE AG111MI OR WILD-GOAT.
271
The meal furnished by the hospitality of my Sama-
ridte guide consisted chiefly of the flesh of a wild-goat,
killed by him on an expedition from which he had only
just returned. I obtained from him thi-ee pairs of the
animal's hornslfl.
The wild-goat or agrimi17 of Crete, is supposed, by
Belon and all subsequent writers on Natural History,
to be the bouquetin or ibex of the Alps. This, however,
does not seem to be the case18.
The following account of the animal is a close
translation of the very words used by an intelligent
mountaineer1J in conversation with me. "The agrimia
are so active that they will leap up a perpendicular
rock, of ten to fourteen feet high : they spring from
precipice to precipice, and bound along with such speed
that no dog would be able to keep up with them,
even on better ground than that where they are found.
The sportsman must never be to windward of them,
or they will perceive his approach long before he comes
within musket-shot. They often carry off a ball, and,
unless they fall immediately on being struck, are mostly
lost to the sportsman, although they may have received
a mortal wound. They are commonly found two, three,
or four together: sometimes a herd of eight and even
nine is seen. A party of four Therisiotes killed two wild-
goats about 1819, one of which weighed twenty-eight
18 They were all of nearly the same size. The length of each of those
engraved at the head of this chapter is, on its outer edge, 2 feet 7J inches,
and, on its inner edge, 2 feet li inches.
17 See above, p. 232. note 4.
13 As appears from an examination of the homs. My friend Mr Rothman,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, writes to me, on examining them,
" it is not the bouquetin, to which however it bears considerable resemblance,
but the real wild-goat, the capra aegagrus. Pallas, the supposed origin of all
our domestic varieties. The horns present the anterior trenchant edge, cha-
racteristic of this species. The discovery of the aegagrus in Crete is perhaps
a fact of some zoological interest, as it is the first well-authenticated European
locality of this animal."
" Captain Vasi'li Khalis, of The'riso.
THE AG111MI OR WILD-GOAT.
271
The meal furnished by the hospitality of my Sama-
ridte guide consisted chiefly of the flesh of a wild-goat,
killed by him on an expedition from which he had only
just returned. I obtained from him thi-ee pairs of the
animal's hornslfl.
The wild-goat or agrimi17 of Crete, is supposed, by
Belon and all subsequent writers on Natural History,
to be the bouquetin or ibex of the Alps. This, however,
does not seem to be the case18.
The following account of the animal is a close
translation of the very words used by an intelligent
mountaineer1J in conversation with me. "The agrimia
are so active that they will leap up a perpendicular
rock, of ten to fourteen feet high : they spring from
precipice to precipice, and bound along with such speed
that no dog would be able to keep up with them,
even on better ground than that where they are found.
The sportsman must never be to windward of them,
or they will perceive his approach long before he comes
within musket-shot. They often carry off a ball, and,
unless they fall immediately on being struck, are mostly
lost to the sportsman, although they may have received
a mortal wound. They are commonly found two, three,
or four together: sometimes a herd of eight and even
nine is seen. A party of four Therisiotes killed two wild-
goats about 1819, one of which weighed twenty-eight
18 They were all of nearly the same size. The length of each of those
engraved at the head of this chapter is, on its outer edge, 2 feet 7J inches,
and, on its inner edge, 2 feet li inches.
17 See above, p. 232. note 4.
13 As appears from an examination of the homs. My friend Mr Rothman,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, writes to me, on examining them,
" it is not the bouquetin, to which however it bears considerable resemblance,
but the real wild-goat, the capra aegagrus. Pallas, the supposed origin of all
our domestic varieties. The horns present the anterior trenchant edge, cha-
racteristic of this species. The discovery of the aegagrus in Crete is perhaps
a fact of some zoological interest, as it is the first well-authenticated European
locality of this animal."
" Captain Vasi'li Khalis, of The'riso.