Asiatic Ibex 2 7 5
certain that the animal was formerly able to exist at comparatively low
elevations, and that its restriction to the high Alps is a relatively modern
event in its history.
Habits.—In the days of its abundance the Alpine ibex was probably so
similar in its general mode of life to the Asiatic species that; one account
will in the main serve for both. There is, however, some difference
between the two in respect to the tim e s if reproduction. In the Alpine
ibex the pairing time is January, and the kids are born five months later,
about the end of June or beginning of July. Either one or two kids are
produced at a birth, and in size they are nearly the same as those of the
- ordinary domesticated goat. In the Alps the old buck ibex, which keep
apart from the does at all times except the pairing .treason, ascend far
above the snow-line, and are thus denizens of a region to which the chamois]
does not properly belong. The cry or bleat of the ibex is very similar to
that of the chamois, but more prolonged.
8. T he A s ia t ic I bex— C a p r a s ib ir ic a
Capra sibirica$ Meyer, Zool. Annal. 'vol. i. p. 397 (1794) ; Gray, List
Mamm. Brit. Mus. p. 5.2 ( 1 8 4 3 ! Cat. Gngulata Brit. Mas. p. 150 (1852),
Cat. Ruminants Brit, Mus. p. 52 (1 S y a j; Blasius, Sdugeth. Deutschlands, p. 481
i| i8 5 i) ;JRadde, Reise Ost-Siberien, vol. i. p. 243, pi. x. (1862) ; Severtzoff,
Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, vol. xviii. p. 333 (1878) ; Blanford, Scient.
Results Second Yarkand Exped.—Mamm. p. 86 (1879) ; Fauna Brit. Ind.—
Mamm. p. 503,^1891) ; Scully, Proc. Zool. She.. 1881, p. 208 ; P. L. Sclater.
Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p. 3 16 ; Prezewalski, Cat. Zool. Coll. p. 15 (1887) ;
W. L. Sclater, Cat. Mamm. Ind. Mus. pt. ii. p. 1 4 3 ^ 8 9 1 ) ; True, Proc,
U. S. Mus. vol.. xvii. p. 6 (1894)-; Ward, Records o f Big Game, p. 224
(1896).