Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/619

Rh frequently have cases of this offense before them, and inflict absurdly inadequate fines.

A quaint belief is that in dry desert places where wells formerly existed goats will group themselves in a circle round the ancient well-brink, though not a trace of it is visible to the keenest



human eye. Those who sketch animals may have noticed that goats at rest have a way of grouping themselves as if posing for their portraits. It is possible that this unconscious trick is at the bottom of the well-brink belief. So far as I know, there are no sayings which notice the fine carriage of the head and the elegant horse-like gait of this beautiful animal. The Indian goat, as a rule, is much taller and of more slender build than the European animal.

From an administrative and economic point of view there are serious objections to the goat, which is one of the plagues of the Forest Department of the Government. It is the poor man's animal, and is supposed to cost nothing to keep. Every green shoot is nibbled off as soon as it peeps above the ground, and young trees are promptly destroyed by creatures which spend half their time on their hind legs, and have an effective reach up to the height of a man's head.