The book of the goat : Containing full particulars of the various breeds of goats and their profitable management / [Henry Stephen Holmes-Pegler].

  • Holmes-Pegler, Henry Stephen, 1848-
Date:
[1917]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book of the goat : Containing full particulars of the various breeds of goats and their profitable management / [Henry Stephen Holmes-Pegler]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of climate; it is in Persia, therefore, that we ought perhaps to have the earliest records of the goat, but unfor¬ tunately nothing historically is known of the early periods of Persia, and it was not till the wars of Alexander and his successors that the Greeks formed any real conception of the position and character of the land from which their ancient and formidable enemies took their name. The word Pdsang is the name of the male of the wild goat, and signifies in Persian “the rock-footed ”; the female is galled Boz, or Boz-fasang, though the term Boz is also applied to both sexes of the common domestic goat. {“ Zoology of Persia,” Blandford, p. 90.) It is very probable that the Accadians, or ancient inhabi¬ tants of the high lands of Elam, from very early periods domesticated the common goat, and that the wild kind existed on the mountains of their own lands and those adjacent. The names given to animals often throw light on the countries originally inhabited by them; the Acca¬ dians frequently adopted this kind of nomenclature. Thus, one of the names of a “ wolf ” in the Accadian language denotes “ high,” implying that the wolf descended into the low lands from the hills of Armenia; the “ horse ” is “ the beast of burden from the East,” pointing to Armenia as its early home. There are two or three words for a goat in the same language, one of which appears to denote the animal “ with elevated horns,” which is well suited to the goat as its figure is shown on the monuments from Assyria. One of the Sanskrit names for the lie-goat is a/a, that of the she-goat is ajd, with the final vowel long. This word has considerable interest; it comes from the root aj, to go,” “ to drive,” “ to lead ”; its meaning is pre¬ served in the Greek dyw, and the Latin ago. In the most ancient form of Sanskrit, that of the Vedas, the epithet aja is given to certain deities, as to Indra, Rudra, Agni,