The Ibex combines with the characters of the Goat the agility and
fleetness of the Antelopes. “All readers of natural history,” says
Col. Markham, “are familiar with the wonderful climbing and saltatory
powers of the Ibex; and although they cannot (as has been described in
print) make a spring and hang on by the horns until they gain a
footing, yet in reality for such heavy animals they get over the most
inaccessible-looking places in an almost miraculous manner. Nothing
seems to stop them nor to impede their progress in the least. To see a
flock, after being fired at, take a distant line across country, which
they often do over all sorts of seemingly impassable ground, now along
the naked surface of an almost perpendicular rock, then across a
formidable landslip or an inclined plane of loose stones or sand,
which the slightest touch sets in motion both above and below,
dividing into chasms to which there seems no possible outlet, but
instantly reappearing on the opposite side, never deviating in the
slightest from their course, and at the same time getting over the
ground at the rate of something like fifteen miles an hour, is a sight
not to be easily forgotten.”
The Ibex inhabits the most inaccessible summits of the loftiest
mountains of Europe, Asia and Africa, and may frequently be seen
bounding from rock to rock among the highest peaks of their snow-clad
grandeur, climbing cliffs with the activity of a Bird, and disporting
itself in regions unapproachable by any other quadruped.