Goatskin

“ Each particular species of goat hide possesses its own peculiarities of texture. The thickness and grain differ according to the environment in which the animal has been raised. It is peculiar that those raised in cold climates do not have as thick skins as those raised in warmer climates, for the long, thick hair apparently takes the strength.
We may wonder where all the skins come from that are made up into glazed kid, mat kid, and suede, at the rate of several thousand dozen every day. The great proportion of the skins are goatskins. ”

“ The large goatskins for water and small ones for meal do not differ from those used throughout the East. The goat is skinned without cutting the hide except around the neck and limbs: the skin is peeled off the carcass and well greased. The legs are sewn up and roped for slinging: rents or holes are skilfully sewn up or patched with leather and cotton thread so that they do not leak. A new skin recently greased with goat or sheep fat is abominable, as the water becomes strongly impregnated with the reek of goat. ”

“ Their shoulders are thickly padded with hay to protect them from the blows which used to be rained very liberally on their backs. Fawnskins on their shoulders and goatskins on their legs are or used to be part of their equipment, and another indispensable part of it is a number of sheep-bells tied round their waists. One of the two skin-clad actors carries a bow and the other a wooden effigy of the male organ of generation. Both these actors must be married men. ”

“ He who wishes to form a flock of goats should consider in choosing them: first of all that they are of an age capable of breeding, and that for some time to come, for a tiro is more useful for that purpose than a veteran. As to conformation, see to it that they are strong and large, with a smooth body and thick coat: but beware of the short haired goat, for there are both kinds. The she goat should have two excrescences, like little teats, hanging under the muzzle: those which have them are fecund: the larger the udder the more milk and butter fat she will yield. ”

“ The strong smell of the goat does not proceed from his flesh but his skin. These animals are not permitted to grow old, or perhaps they might live to ten or twelve years; but it is usual to kill them as soon as they cease to multiply, because the older they are the worse is their flesh. Both male and female goats have horns, with a very few exceptions; they vary very much in the colour of their hair: it is said that those which are white, and have no horns, give the most milk, and that the black ones are the strongest. ”

“ Thou hast never robbed man of any part of his property, nor deprived the kid of a drop of milk.
When the moon shines bright you may have a fair p. 180opportunity of examining the goatsucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. Approach a little nearer—he is not shy, “he fears no danger, for he knows no sin.” See how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches them, as fast as they alight on the belly, legs, and udder of the animals. ”

“ The so-called goat-sucker lives on mountains; it is a little larger than the owsel, and less than the cuckoo; it lays two eggs, or three at the most, and is of a sluggish disposition. It flies up to the she-goat and sucks its milk, from which habit it derives its name; it is said that, after it has sucked the teat of the animal, the teat dries up and the animal goes blind. It is dim-sighted in the day-time, but sees well enough by night. ”

“ The Craigs had been impassable with snow for five years and the country at the north end of the plateau, where the iron had been found, had been buried under never-melting snow and growing glaciers for twenty years.
There came the soft tinkling of ceramic bells as the herd of milk goats came down off the hills. Two children were following and six prowlers walked with them, to protect them from wild unicorns.
There were not many of the goats. Each year the winters were longer, requiring the stocking of a larger supply of hay. ”

“ In some places they call it the ‘goatsucker,’ from a foolish idea that it sucked the milk from the goats, as it is sometimes seen to fly close down to them, and, between the legs of various animals, to capture the flies that infest them in the soft, tender parts of their bodies. A glance at the bird’s great gaping mouth should be sufficient to convince anybody that it was meant for nothing else but catching flies, and the spiny fringe of hair at the side for caging them there when caught. ”

“ When the thaw set in, he led them all out to feed, and the wild goats scampered away as fast as they could to the mountains. The Goatherd taxed them with their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the storm he had taken more care of them than of his own herd. One of them turning about said to him, "That is the very reason why we are so cautious; for if you yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so long, it is plain also that if others came after us, you would, in the same manner, prefer them to ourselves."
Old friends cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones. ”

“ What do we want with a goat? If I had it I should lose half my time in climbing up the hills to get it down. No, if I have a sheep, I shall have both wool and clothing, and fresh meat in the house. Run out, child, and put up the sheep."
"But I haven't the sheep any more than the rest," said Gudbrand, "for when I got a bit farther, I traded it away for a goose." ”

“ In the East the mountain goat never can be more than an object of temporary curiosity, as he cannot long survive the rigors of our Atlantic summer. A number of young goat have been captured in British Columbia for exhibition in the New York Zoological Park, but while very docile, and taking readily to the milk of domestic ewes, they all died before shipment except the four now on exhibition at the Park. ”

“ The twisted or wrinkled horns of an old he-goat are not despicable weapons. As the reward of many hours’ hard clambering, varied by wading through ice-cold torrents, and spiced, it may be, with some danger, the goat hunter may secure a long pair of curving horns, or in mid-winter a thick, warm pelt, sometimes, though rarely, pure white. Moreover, he may feel that he is ridding the mountain pastures of an unlicensed competitor of that sacred quadruped, the sheep. Goats are by no means welcome on sheep-runs. ”

“ When they had almost given up the animals as a myth, feeling inclined to believe that the old “billy” they had seen the evening before was the creature of their imagination, they suddenly came upon the flock. The goats were secreted in a thicket of buckthorn trees and tussock-grass, close to where the tableland sloped to the beach at its western extremity.
There were twenty-three in all, and must have been the produce of a pair which some whaling vessel had turned loose on the island; for, they were every one marked in the same way as the patriarchal-looking male,—evidently their progenitor. ”

“ At Ellwangen, in Würtemburg, the effigy of a goat is made out of the last bundle of corn at threshing; four sticks form its legs, and two its horns. The man who gives the last stroke with the flail must carry the Goat to the barn of a neighbour who is still threshing and throw it down on the floor; if he is caught in the act, they tie the Goat on his back. A similar custom is observed at Indersdorf, in Upper Bavaria; the man who throws the straw Goat into the neighbour's barn imitates the bleating of a goat; if they catch him, they blacken his face and tie the Goat on his back. ”

“ I presume that these goats have no nonsense about them when they are alone with the goat-herds, any more than the goat-herds have, except when they come to pose in the studio; but the long ages of culture, the presence always to the eye of the best models and the forms of immortal beauty, the heroic friezes of the Temple of Theseus, the marble processions of sacrificial animal have had a steady moulding, educating influence equal to a society of decorative art upon the people and the animals who have dwelt in this artistic atmosphere. The Attic goat has become an artificially artistic being ”

“ But on the plains of Northern India, under ranges of hills on which the Persian ibex wanders wild, the common domestic goat is a very different animal from that of Europe, and has peculiar spiral horns of the same pattern as the markhor, another grand species of wild goat which draws eager hunters to the higher reaches of the same mountains. From this it would appear that two species of wild goat have been domesticated and kept to some extent distinct, one eventually finding its way westward, but not eastward and southward. ”

“ Peter struck the flint before the rod had got cold, and thus got the spark inside the flint. Thus it is that sparks fly when the flint is struck by iron.
As for the goats, the following variants and parallels are of interest:
According to an Armenian legend of Transylvania (Dähnhardt, 154; Wlislocki, 12) , the goat is the very work of the Evil One. Jealous of God, who has made all the creatures, he boasted that he also would make a creature of his own. When he saw how God fashioned the lamb, one of the last of God’s creatures, he set to work to make an animal in the likeness of the lamb. ”

“ I think shooting goats from an airship would be ‘pot hunting.’”
“I don’t agree with you,” retorted Phil instantly. [236] “As for only doing what the goats have a right to be looking for, there’s nothing in that or we wouldn’t be able to shoot them at all. Goats don’t know anything about guns. And as for the goats having no reason to be looking for an enemy above them, their animal enemies are always above or below ’em. And Sam Skinner says the golden eagle swoops down on them from above whenever he wants a fresh kid.” ”

“ Lake had a corral built early the following spring, with camouflaged wings, to trap some of the woods goats when they came. It would be an immense forward step toward conquering their new environment if they could domesticate the goats and have goat herds near the caves all through the year. Gathering enough grass to last a herd of goats through the winter would be a problem—but first, before they worried about that, they would have to see if the goats could survive the summer and winter extremes of heat and cold. ”

“ The best goat-skins come from the Saxon and Bavarian Highlands, Swiss Alps, Pyrenees, Turkey, Bosnia, Southern Hungary and the Urals. The goats being exposed to all winds yield fine skins. A good number come from Argentina and from Abyssinia, the Cape and other parts of Africa. Of all light leathers the goat has the toughest and tightest grain; it is, therefore, especially liked for fancy work. The grain is rather too bold for glacé work, for which the sheep is largely used. ”

“ Only the kid is prized for eating, especially in the South, where the aromatic vegetation of the hills takes away its natural tastelessness. The goat’s fleece, though used for certain coarse fabrics, is not of much importance, either, and cannot in any way take the place of sheep’s wool. But a breed native in the hilly regions of Central Asia, the Cashmere goat, furnishes a down of incomparable fineness, from which precious stuffs are made. This goat, under a thick fur of long hair, bears an abundant down that protects it from the rigors of cold and is shed naturally every spring. ”

“ We must uselessly wonder if they did; and I should have been more indebted to a foot-note in the “Biological Survey of Mount Shasta,” which touches upon the goat’s habitat in Oregon and Washington, were it not wholly silent as to the [Pg 251] animal’s presence or absence, past or present, in the state of California.
The farther we follow the story of the white goat, the more do we find his steps attended with the mists of confusion; and for the gloomy critic this would be a timely moment to write some sentences about the longevity of error. ”

“ Whin it comes to animals, we can only put our come ’ither on cattle and horses, and such as are Christian animals, ye know. In his mind and in his heart a goat is a pagen. He wouldn’t ask any betther divarsion than for me to thry and lay me hands on him,” says the King, wiping his eyes.
“But,” says he agin, standing up on the stool and houlding his pipe over his head, “Anthony Sullivan’s goat is the gallusest baste that roams the fields! There’s more fun in him, and no more fear in him, than in a yallow lion. ”

“ It is said that goats will cross walls of rock which neither man, dog nor mountain sheep would dare attempt to pass. Sometimes they walk along the face of a precipice of apparently smooth rock; yet in doing so they frequently look back and turn around whenever they feel so inclined. The white goat is built something on the order of a small American bison. Its head is carried low and the horns are small and short. Its hair is yellowish-white. Next to the skin is a thick coat of fine wool through which grows a long outside thatch of coarse hair. ”

“ The sum of my experience is, that first I killed some plainly old male goats (they were off by themselves, no longer with the herd) , and of these the coats were dingy; that presently I found a plainly younger male goat (he was lighter in weight and his horns and hoofs showed less wear) , and his coat was spotless; and that finally I found the coat of a kid born that same year to be equally spotless. What is the inference—almost the conclusion? Is it not that in the older goats the color was discoloration, from causes external; that by nature the goat is perfectly white ”

“ Down from the tips and up from the bob-pit they came, singly and in sets, undemonstrative matrons with weak-kneed twins at their heels, skittish kids and bearded veterans, and joined the anxious, eager, hungry mob.
'Away with them, my boys,' ordered Moonlighter. 'Head 'em fer the common.
We'll have every blessed goat in the place.'
He sent away three bands in three different directions, fully provisioned, and commissioned to collect goats from all quarters. ”