The book of the goat : Containing full particulars of the various breeds of goats and their profitable management / [Henry Stephen Holmes-Pegler].

  • Holmes-Pegler, Henry Stephen, 1848-
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book of the goat : Containing full particulars of the various breeds of goats and their profitable management / [Henry Stephen Holmes-Pegler]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    warts (•verruculce)—as a mark of the most valuable females. Goats breathe through the ears and not through the nose; he quotes Archelaus as his authority. An equally absurd idea held by some of the ancients was that the animal breathed through the horns. At sunset, as is said, she-goats in the pastures never look at each other, but lie back to back; at other times of the day they lie facing each other. The beard is called aruncus, from the Greek rjpvyyos: If one of the flock is dragged by the beard, the rest look on in stupid astonishment. In sop’s fables the goat is generally represented as being not over clever, as in that of the Fox which had fallen into a well, and the Goat by whose assistance Reynard got out. The Fox remarked to the Goat, whom he left in the well, “ If you had half as much brains as you have beard, you would have looked before you leaped.” Against this I will give what Pliny, on the authority of an eye-witness, Mutianus, relates as to the intelligence of the goat, and with this little story will conclude this chapter :— “ Two goats coming from opposite directions met on a very narrow bridge, which would not admit of either of them turning round, and in consequence of its great length they could not safely go backwards, there being no sure footing on account of its narrowness, while at the same time an impetuous torrent was rushing rapidly beneath; accordingly one of the animals lay down flat, and the other walked over it.” C
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