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ANIMALsS. 57

as to minister to the wants of man in the different climates of the world. The sheep, which, in many of its varieties, is a coarse-woolled animal, has assumed various forms and infinite varieties in the flavor of its mutton— in its fleece, and in its adaptation either to cold, temperate, or tropical climates. In Africa and the West Indies, breeds have sprung up, called by some ‧Nubian sheep,“ the wool of which has become converted into a short, coarse, glossy hair. In the mountains of Spain and in Saxony, varieties of the same species produce the finest wool. These Merino and Saxon sheep having become perma- nent breeds, have retained their fine fleece in our country during suc- cessive generations. The varieties of the goat are equally numerous and equally varied in different eountries. ſhey are all of one species, the varieties mixing and multiplying with each other ad infinitum.

They all claim as their origin the common goat, Capra hircus,)

which, it is admitted by nearly all reliable naturalists, derives its parentage from the wild goat,(Capra ægagrus,) that still exists on the European Alps. Two individuals of this wild species lived for several years in the menagerie of Paris, and exhibited all the habits of the common goat. We have, on several occasions, seen herds of our common goat, which had strayed away and become wild; one of these might for several years have been seen on that wonderful pro- duction of Nature, the Stone Mountain of Georgia. They evidenced all the peculiarities ascribed to the wild goats of the Alps. A herd of these goats exists on the precipitous side of Ben Nevis, in Scotland, and are described as still numerous on the rocky island of Juan Fer- nandez, which the fertile imagination of Defoe, by the aid of the narrative of Selkirk, has invested with such a fascinating romance. An animal so easily reared and domesticated must have been given to man by a beneficent Providence for a more valuable purpose than that of its very sparing portion of milk and its rather inferior flesh. The Creator, who gave to our first parents the soil, with the command to till' it, has also given to the animals which accompany him in his migrations over the earth an organization adapted to the production of improved and permaneunt varieties. These, when produced, it becomes the duty of man to increase and multiply. The individual who does this, by the application of his time, his scientific knowledge, his labors, or his wealth, carries out the designs of a superintending Providence, and becomes a public benefactor. The goat has, in several of its varieties, become a wool-bearing animal. To these we will now direct our attention. We have satisfactory evidences that, from the time of Moses, who in several places refers to the fine linen and goat's hair spun by the women, the manufacture of fine fabrics from the hair of this animal has been uninterruptedly kept up. Throughout all the higher mountains of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, goat's hair, of fine quality, has been an article of manufacture and a source of wealth to thousands of the human family. These fine- haired breeds of goats exist under many varieties in Angora, Northern Persia, Cashmere, Nepal, Thibet,&c. These have sent off herds, varying in some particulars, into Bucharia, Tartary, and Syria. A small herd was, some years ago, after incalculable difficulties, carried