Buffon's Natural History. Volume 08 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

The male wild goat differs from the chamois, by the length, thickness, and form of his horns; he is also more bulky, vigorous, and stronger. The female wild goat has smaller horns than the male, and nearly resembling those of the chamois. In other respects, these two animals have the same customs, the same manners, and inhabit the same climate; only the wild goat being more agile, and stronger, climbs to the summits of the highest mountains, while the chamois never goes higher than the second stage; but neither of them are to be found in the plains; both clear their way in the snow, and both bound from one rock to another. Both are covered with a firm solid skin, and cloathed in winter with a double fur, with very rough hair outwardly, and a more fine and thicker underneath. Both of them have a black stripe on the back, and tails nearly of the same size. The number of exterior resemblances in fact is so great, and the conformity of the exterior parts is so complete, that we might be led to believe these two animals were only simple varieties of the same species. The wild, as well as the chamois goats when taken young, and brought up with domestic goats, are easily tamed, imbibe the same manners, herd together, return to the same fold, and probably, copulate and produce together. But this last fact, the most important of all, and which alone would decide the question, is not ascertained.[S] We have never learnt for a certainty whether the wild and the chamois copulate with our goats; we only suppose it, and in this respect agree with the ancients. But our presumption appears founded upon those analogies which experience has seldom contradicted.

[S] Sonnini has an important fact upon this subject. He says that M. Berthoud van Berchem saw mongrels which proceeded from the copulation of a wild goat brought up at Aigle in the Lower Vallais, in the house of the governor of Vatteville, with many domestic goats. All the inhabitants of the town of Aigle were witnesses of this fact.

Let us, nevertheless, take a view of the reasons against it. The wild and chamois goats both subsist in a state of nature, and both are constantly distinct. The chamois sometimes comes of his own accord and joins the flock of our domestic kind, but the wild goat never associates with them, at least before he is tamed. The male wild goat and the common he-goat have very long beards and the chamois has none. The male and female chamois have very small horns: those of the male wild goat are so thick and so long, that they would scarcely be imagined to belong to an animal of his size. The chamois also appears to differ from the wild goat and the common he-goat, by the direction of his horns, which are inclined a little forwards in their lower parts, and bent backwards at the point in the form of a hook; but, as we have already remarked, in speaking of oxen and sheep, the horns of domestic animals vary prodigiously, as do also those of wild animals, according to the differences of climate. Our female goats have not their horns absolutely resembling those of the male. The horns of the male wild goat are not very different from those of our he-goat; and as the female wild goat approaches the domestic kind, and even the chamois, in size and smallness of the horns, may we not conclude, that the wild, the chamois, and the domestic goat, are, in fact, but one species, in which the nature of the females is invariably alike, while the males are subject to variations? In this point of view, which, perhaps, is not so distinct from Nature as might be imagined, the wild goat would be the male in the original race of goats, and the chamois the female. This is not imaginary, since we can prove by experience, that there are in Nature, animals where the females will equally serve the males of different species, and produce young from both. The sheep produces with the he-goat as well as with the ram, and always brings forth lambs of its own species; the ram, on the contrary, does not copulate with the she-goat. We may, therefore, look upon the sheep as a female common to two different males, and consequently, constitutes a species independent of the male. It may be the same in that of the wild goat; the female alone represents the primitive species, because her nature is constant; the males, on the contrary, vary, and there is a great appearance that the domestic she-goat, which may be considered as the same female as the chamois and the wild kind, would produce with these three different males, which alone make the variety in the species, and consequently do not alter the identity, although they appear to change the unity of it.

These, like most other possible accounts, must be found in Nature; it even appears, that the females in general contribute more to the support of the species than the males; for though both concur in the first formation of the fœtus, the female, who afterwards alone furnishes all that is necessary to its growth and nutrition, modifies and assimilates it more to her own nature, which cannot fail of effacing the impression of the parts derived from the male. Thus, if we would judge deliberately and rationally of a species, the females should be the objects examined. The male gives half of the living substance, the female gives as much, and furnishes besides all the necessary matter for its formation. A handsome woman has almost always fine children; a handsome man with an ugly woman, commonly has children who are still more ugly.

Thus, in the same species, there may sometimes be two races, the one masculine, and the other feminine, both of which subsisting and perpetuating their distinctive characters, seem to constitute two different species; and this is the point where it appears almost impossible to fix the term between what naturalists call species and variety. Suppose, for example, we should constantly couple he-goats with some sheep, and rams with others; it is evident, that after a certain number of generations, there would be established in the species of the sheep, a breed which would tend greatly towards the goat, and would afterwards perpetuate itself; for, though the first produce with the he-goat would be very little removed from the species of the mother, and would be a lamb and not a kid, nevertheless this lamb would have hair, and some other characteristics of its father. If we afterwards couple the he-goat with these female bastards, the production of this second generation will approach nearer to the species of the father, still nearer in the third, and so on. By this method the adventitious characters would soon prevail over the natural ones, and this fictitious breed might support itself, and form a variety in the species, whose origin it would be very difficult to recognize; therefore what can be done by the influence of the one species on another, may still be more effectually produced by the same species. If strong females have continually only weak males, in course of time, a feminine race will be established; and if very strong males are put to females of inferior strength and vigour, a masculine race will be the result, and will appear so different from the first, as hardly to be allowed to have one common origin, and which consequently will be regarded as really distinct and separate species.

To these general reflections, we shall add some particular observations. Linnæus speaks of two animals which he had seen in Holland, that were of the goat kind; the horns of the first were short, almost resting upon the skull, and its hair was long; the second had erect horns, the points turned back, and the hair short. These animals, which appeared to be more in species than the chamois and the common goat, nevertheless produced together, which sufficiently demonstrates that these differences in the shape of the horns, and length of the hair, are not specific and essential characters; for as these animals produced together, they must be regarded as the same species. From this example we may draw a very probable induction, that the chamois and our goat, whose principal differences consist in the shape of the horns and the length of the hair, are probably one and the same species.

In the royal cabinet there is a skeleton of an animal which was given to the menagerie under the name of capricorne; it perfectly resembles the domestic goat in the make of the body and the proportion of the bones, and in the form of the lower jaw, that of the wild-goat; but he differs from both in the horns; those of the wild-goat have prominent tubercles, and two longitudinal ridges; those of the common he-goat have but one ridge, and no turbercles, the horns of the capricorne have but one ridge and no tubercles, but only rugosities which are larger than those of the goat; these differences indicate, therefore, an intermediate race between the wild and the domestic goat. The horns of the capricorne are also short and crooked at the point, like those of the chamois, and, at the same time, they are compressed, and have rings; thus they partake at once of the common goat, the wild goat, and the chamois goat.

Mr. Brown, in his History of Jamaica, relates, that in that island there is actually to be found, 1. The common domestic goat of Europe; 2. The chamois; and 3. The wild goat. He affirms, that neither of these three animals are natives of America, but have been transported from Europe; that they have, like the sheep, degenerated and become smaller in this new country; that the wool of the sheep is changed into a rough hair like that of the goat; that the wild goat appears to be a bastard race, &c. From this we are induced to suppose that the small goat, with erect horns and crooked at the points, which Linnæus saw in Holland, and was said to come from America, is the chamois of Jamaica, that is, the chamois of Europe degenerated, and become less by the climate of America; and that the wild goat of Jamaica, which Mr. Brown calls the bastard wild goat, is our capricorne, which appears to be only a wild goat degenerated, and whose horns might have varied by the influence of the climate.

M. Daubenton, after having scrupulously examined the affinities of the chamois with those of the he-goat and the ram, says, that in general, it resembles more the first than the last; the principal differences besides the horns are the form and size of the forehead, which is less elevated and shorter in the chamois than in the goat, and the form of the nose, which is more contracted; so that in these two, the chamois bears a greater resemblance to the ram than to the goat. But supposing, for which there is much reason, that the chamois is a constant variety of the species of the he-goat, as the bull-dog and greyhound are fixed varieties in the species of the dog, we shall see that these differences in the size of the forehead and the position of the nose, are not nearly so great in the chamois, relatively to the goat, as in the bull-dog relative to the greyhound, which, nevertheless produce together, and are certainly of the same species. In other respects, as the chamois resembles the goat by a greater number of characters than the ram, if it constitute a particular species, it must necessarily be an intermediate one betwixt the goat and the ram. We have observed, that the he-goat and the sheep produce together, therefore the chamois, which is an intermediate species between the two, and at the same time is much nearer the goat than the ram, by the number of resemblances, ought to copulate with the she-goat and consequently must not be considered but as a variety constant in this species.