They have a great long beard, and are brownish grey of colour, like unto a Wolf, and very shaggy.

 

The Hunting of the Wild Goat.

There are two sorts of Wild Goats; the one is called even so, Wild Goats, and the other sort is called Ysirus or Saris. 

Although I have not heard or read there be any of them in England, or at least any that be hunted, yet because it may be well enough there are some in Wales or in other mountains, I have thought good to set down the nature of him, and the manner of hunting him as I found it in mine author, placing him among the beasts of Venery, since it appears by the Holy Scriptures that his flesh is venison.

The Wild Goat is as big as a Hart, but he is not so long, nor so long-legged, but they have as much flesh as the Hart has. They have wreathes and wrinkles on their horns, whereby their age is known; for so many years old as he is, so many wreaths you shall find about his horn, and as a Hart mews not the beam, the which is as big as a man's leg is he be an old Goat. They have a great long beard, and are brownish grey of colour, like unto a Wolf, and very shaggy, having a black list all along the chyne of their back, and down to their belly is falow, their legs black, and their tail fallow. Their feet are like the feet of a Tame Goat, but somewhat greater.

They are fawned in May, and fawn as a Hind or Doe, but they have but one fawn at once, the which they suckle and bring up as the Tame Goat brings up her kid. 

Their feed is of corn and grass, as other Deer feed; but they will eat juie, moss and such like feed that is hard, better than any other Deer. In spring, they make their fumettes round, but afterwards they make them broader and flat, as a Hart does when he comes to good feed. There is judgement to be taken by their fumettes, either found or flat, even as there is of a Hart.

They go to rut about All Hallowtide, and abide therein a month. When their rut is past, they put themselves in herds, and come down from the mountains and rocks, where they abide all the summer; and as well to eschew the snow, because they find no food on the mountains any longer. Yet they come not very low into the plains, but keep about the foot of the mountains, and there seek dood until it be towards Easter; then, they return to the mountains, and every one of them takes him to his hold or strongest covert upon the rocks and crags, ever as the Hart keeps the thicket. The He-Goats part from the female - which are called Geats, and the bucks Goats - and the Geats draw near to some litt;e brook or water to fawn, and to abide there all the summer. When the Goats be so parted from the Geats, attending until the time of their rut return, they run upon either man or beasts which pass by them, and fight one with another as Harts do, but not altogether alike. For these make an unpleasant noise, and they hurt sore with their blows, not with the ends of their horns, but with the midst and butt of their head; in such sort they oftentimes break a man's leg or his arm at a blow, and though he wounds not with his blow, if he bear a man against a tree or a bank, he will surely kill him, and such force has he also in the chyne of his back that though a man - how strong so ever he be - should strike him with a bar of iron overthwart the reins, he will go on and never shrink at it. 

When he goes to rut, his throat and neck is marvellous great. He has such a property that although he fall ten poles length down from on high, he will take no hurt thereby; he goes as surely upon the top of a rock, as a horse will go on a highway. They climb marvellously for their feed, and sometimes they fall; then can they not hold with their feet, but thrust out their heads against the rocks and hang by their horns until they have recovered themselves up again.

That kind of them which is called Ysirus or Saris is of like proportion to this which I have already described, and is not much bigger than the Tame Goat. His nature and properties are - in manner - all one with the Wild Goat. Sometimes, he would scratch hiss thighs with his soot, and thrusts his hoofs in so far that he cannot draw them back again, but falls and breaks his neck, for the hoofs of his feet are crooked, and he thrusts them far into the skin, and then they will not come out again.

When they come from their feed, they go to the rocks, and lie upon the hardest places they can find. 

The gall both of this sort and the other is very good for sinews that be shrunk up, when they are great and old, and are but too fat venison, especially within the body.

The Geats have horns like the Goats in all respects, but not so great; both sorts of them have their season and grease time, like unto the Hart going to rut at All Hallowride. Then, you may hunt them until their rutting time come, for in winter they are very lean, feeding upon nothing but pines and fir trees, or such other woods as are always green, how little nouriture so ever they yield. 

Their leather is warm when it is carried in season, for neither cold nor rain will pierce it, if the hairy side be outwards. Their flesh is not very wholesome, but breeds the fever through the abundant heat that is in it; nevertheless, when they are in season, the venison of them is reasonable delicate to eat.

How to Hunt the Wild Goat.

The best time to hunt the Wild Goat is at All Hallowtide, and the huntsman must lie by night in the high mountains, in some shepherd's cabin or such cottage; and it were good he lay so seven or eight days before he mean to hunt, to see the advantages of the coasts, the rocks and places where the goats lie, and all such other circumstances. Let him set nets or toyles, or forestallings, towards the rivers and bottoms, even he would for a Hart; for he may not look to his hounds will follow the Goat down every place of the mountains, if he have not Hewers not Huntsmen enough to set round about. Let him place his companions on the tops of the rocks, that they may throw down stones, and shoot with crossbows at the Goats.

A Huntsman shall seek them and draw after them with his Bloodhound, ever as he does after a Hart, and then cast off four or five couple of hounds to maintain the cry, and shall make three or four relays to refresh those hounds which are first cast off; for when his hounds have once or twice climbed up the mountains and cliffs, they will be so hot and so sore spent, they can hunt no longer. 

Then, the Goat goes down to the small brooks or waters in the bottoms, and therefore at such places it shall be best setting of relays, and let the relays never tarry until the hounds come in, which were first cast off, for it will be long sometimes before they come in. Yet there are some lusty young hounds which will never give over a Goat nor suffer him to take soil.

This chase requires no great art nor following, neither can a man follow on foot nor on horseback. The best help is in the relays, which shall be set in the bottoms, and for the reward it may be done at pleasure, and devise of the Huntsmen, always provided he reward not the hounds with the best morsels.