GOAT, (a common Teut. word; 0. Eng. gat, Goth. gaits, Mod. Ger. Geiss, cognate with Lat. haedus, a kid), properly the name of the well-known domesticated European ruminant (Capra hircus), which has for all time been regarded as the emblem of everything that is evil, in contradistinction to the sheep, which is the symbol of excellence and purity. Although the ...

AMALTHEIA, in Greek mythology, the foster-mother of Zeus. She is sometimes represented as the goat which suckled the infant-god in a cave in Crete, sometimes as a nymph of uncertain parentage (daughter of Oceanus, Haemonius, Olen, Melisseus), who brought him up on the milk of a goat. This goat having broken off one of its horns, Amaltheia filled it with flowers ...

ANTELOPE, a zoological name which, so far as can be determined, appears to trace its origin, through the Latin, to Pantholops, the old Coptic, and Antholops, the late Greek name of the fabled unicorn. Its adoption by the languages of Europe cannot apparently be traced farther back than the 4th century of our era, at which date it was employed to designate an ...

AURIGA, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, found in the catalogues of Eudoxus (4th century B.e.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.). It was symbolized by the Greeks as an old man in a more or less sitting posture, with a goat and her kids in his left hand, and a bridle in his right.

BOVIDAE, the name of the family of hollow-horned ruminant mammals typified by the common ox (Bos taurus), and specially characterized by the presence on the skulls of the males or of both sexes of a pair of bony projections, or cores, covered in life with hollow sheaths of horn, which are never branched, and at all events after a very early stage of existence are ...

BUCK, the male of several animals, of goats, hares and rabbits, and particularly of the fallow-deer. During the 18th century the word was used of a spirited, reckless young man of fashion, and later, with particular reference to extravagance in dress, of a dandy.

CAPRICORNUS, (" THE Goat"), in astronomy, the tenth sign of the zodiac, represented by the symbol T-2° intended to denote the crooked horns of this animal. The word is derived from Lat. caper, a goat, and cornu, a horn. It is also a constellation of the southern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th. century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy and Tycho ...

CHIMAERA, in Greek mythology, a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the fore part, a goat in the middle, and a dragon behind (Iliad, vi. 179), with three heads corresponding. She devastated Caria and Lycia until she was finally slain by Bellerophon (see H. A. Fischer, Bellerophon, 1851). The origin of the myth was the volcanic nature of the soil of Lycia (Pliny ...

DAIRY, and Dairy-Farming (from the Mid. Eng. deieris, from dey, a maid-servant, particularly one about a farm; cf. Norw. deia, as in bu-deia, a maid in charge of live-stock, and in other compounds; thus " dairy " means that part of the farm buildings where the " dey " works). Milk, either in its natural state ...

FIBERS, the general term for certain structural components of animal and vegetable tissue utilized in manufactures, and in respect of such uses, divided for the sake of classification into textile, paper-making, brush and miscellaneous fibres.

IBEX, one of the names of the Alpine wild goat, otherwise known as the steinbok and bouquetin, and scientifically as Capra ibex. Formerly the ibex was common on the mountain-ranges of Germany, Switzerland and Tirol, but is now confined to the Alps which separate Valais from Piedmont, and to the lofty peaks of Savoy, where its existence is mainly ...

MARKHOR, the Pushtu name of a large Himalayan wild goat (Capra falconeri), characterized by its spirally twisted horns, and long shaggy winter coat. From the Pir-Panjal range of Kashmir the markhor extends westwards into Baltistan, Astor, Hunza, Afghanistan and the trans-Indus ranges of the Punjab.

MOHAIR, the hair of a variety of goat originally inhabiting the regions of Asiatic Turkey of which Angora is the centre, whence the animal is known as the Angora goat. The Arabic mujiayyar, from which the word came into English probably through the Ital. moccacaro or Fr. mocayart, meant literally, "choice" or "select," and was applied to cloth made of goats' hair. ...

PAN, (" pasturer"), in Greek mythology, son of Hermes and one of the daughters of Dryops ("oak-man"), or of Zeus and the nymph Callisto, god of shepherds, flocks and forests. He is not mentioned in Homer or Hesiod. The most poetical account of his birth and life is given in the so-called Homeric hymn To Pan. He was born with horns, a goat's beard and feet and a tail, ...

ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT, or White Goat (Oreamnus montanus), a North American hollow-horned ruminant of the family Bovidae, distinguished by its white colour. It is, in fact, the only ruminant, with the exception of the white Alaskan wild sheep, which is entirely white at all seasons of the year; and cannot, therefore, be mistaken for any other animal, and its ...

SEROW, or SARAU, the Himalayan name of a goat-like antelope of the size of a donkey, nearly allied to the goral ( q .v.) of the same region, but considerably larger, and with small face-glands. The Himalayan animal is a local race of the Sumatran Nemorhaedus sumatrensis; and the name serow is now extended to embrace all the species belonging to the same genus ...

SHEEP, (from the Anglo-Saxon sceap, a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages; e.g. the German Schaf), a name originally bestowed in all probability on the familiar domesticated ruminant (Ovis aries), but now extended to include its immediate wild relatives. Although many of the domesticated breeds are hornless, sheep belong to the family of ...

TAHR, the native name of a shaggy-haired brown Himalayan wild goat characterized by its short, triangular and sharply keeled horns. Under the name of Hemitragus jemlaicus, it typifies a genus in which are included the wariatu, or Nilgiri ibex ...