other times, and realized that this was their natural
position when asleep.

When frightened, like our own mountain sheep or goats, they would run a
short distance and stop to look back. This was usually their undoing, for
they offered excellent targets as they stood silhouetted against the sky.
They were very difficult to see when lying down among the rocks, but our
native hunters, who had most extraordinary eyesight, often would discover
them when it was almost impossible for me to find them even with the field
glasses. We never could be sure that there were no gorals on a
mountainside, for they were adepts at hiding, and made use of a bunch of
grass or the smallest crevice in a rock to conceal themselves, and did it
so completely that they seemed to have vanished from the earth.

Like all sheep and goats, they could climb about where it seemed impossible
for any animal to move. I have seen a goral run down the face of a cliff
which appeared to be almost perpendicular, and where the dogs dared not
venture. As the animal landed on a projecting rock it would bounce off as
though made of rubber, and leap eight or ten feet to a narrow ledge which
did not seem large enough to support a rabbit.

The ability to travel down such precipitous cliffs is largely due to the
animal's foot structure. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn has investigated
this matter in the mountain goat and as his remarks apply almost equally
well to the goral, I cannot do better than quote them here:

The horny part of the foot surrounds only the extreme front. Behind
this crescentic horn is a shallow concavity which gives the horny hoof
a chance to get its hold. Both the main digits and the dewclaws
terminate in black, rubber-like, rounded and expanded soles, which are
of great service in securing a firm footing on the shelving rocks and
narrow ledges on which the animal travels with such ease. This sole,
Smith states, softens in the spring of the year, when the snow is
leaving the ground, a fresh layer of the integument taking its place.
The rubber-like balls with which the dewclaws are provided are by no
means useless; they project back below the horny part of the hoof, and
Mr. Smith has actually observed the young captive goats supporting
themselves solely on their dewclaws on the edge of a roof. It is
probable that they are similarly used on the rocks and precipices,
since on a very narrow l