Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/357

Rh breed having often two kids at a birth, the Kurd Goat having seldom less than two; while at the Cape, Angoras descended from a cross with the Boer Goat, generally have twins, often triplets, and sometimes four young at a birth. But as Angoras in the Colony "are becoming purer and more what they should be, the tendency of ewes to have more than one (even now not common in the best stud flocks) becomes less and less."

The first importation of Angoras into the Cape Colony (or South Africa) was made in 1838 by Colonel Henderson, formerly of Bombay); and of the fourteen Goats that landed, only two, a ewe and her ram kid, may be noticed, for the other twelve rams had been rendered impotent before leaving Turkey. As remarked by our author:—"The day on which the little fellow leapt ashore, beside his dam, fifty-nine years ago, at Table Bay, is a memorable date in the history of South African pastoral products." It is indeed! for South Africa is economically a "poor man's country"—"black man's country"—the usual appellation; take away its mining capacity and it is again within measurable distance of a pastoral condition. The introduction of the Angora Goat is therefore an event of more real significance to many in S. Africa than an elargement of boundaries or a diplomatic triumph. The natives from the time they were first met possessed a practically indigenous Goat, and the " Boer Goat of to-day strikes one as an animal peculiarly South African, as it browses on the arid kopjes of the Great Karoo." This hardy animal, with its coat "short, smooth, and coarse, of almost any colour or combination of colours, frequently being dappled," which can live and thrive where other stock would die, with its pungent and strong flesh naturally survives, and according to the 1891 census numbered then no fewer than 3,444,019, or about 250,000 in excess of the number of Angoras. They can be trained—the Kapaters—as "voerbokken," leaders to flocks of sheep and understanding certain words of command. " It is an odd spectacle to see a couple of immense gaily-coloured Kapaters marching as directed to the front of a flock, and sedately—one almost imagines proudly—leading the way into a kraal or through a gate with the sheep trooping closely after them." These Boer Goats have supplied the mothers of nearly all the Cape Angoras.

The volume is well illustrated, and is full of statistics as to a