Chamois
sham'my, an animal occupying a position midway between the goat and the antelope. It is found in the Pyrenees, the Alps, and in the Caucasus Mountains, eastward to Persia. It is about as large as a well grown goat, but it is somewhat lighter and more graceful in structure. The general color is brown, with a pale yellowish head and a black tail. Two black horns, four or five inches in length, have straight shafts, and are recurved at the point until the tip points directly downward. The chamois is best known in the Alps, where, however, it has been hunted so persistently that the few remaining specimens are protected by law. It lives above the timber line in summer, but descends with its fawn into the upper forests for the winter.
The chamois is a remarkably agile, surefooted animal, and can leap a wall twice the height of a man's head with the utmost ease, or spring across a chasm fifteen feet in width without apparent exertion. It can also rise out of a chasm or descend to the bottom of one by a peculiar series of leaps. It stands with its body parallel, that is, with its sides to the faces of the chasm, and, by a series of side bounds, plants its flinty hoofs, first against one face, then against the other face, of the rock back and forth, thus rising to the top or descending to the bottom of a deep cleft without the least inconvenience. Throughout the series of jumps the body is held easily rigid. All four hoofs are flung out first on one side, then on the other, against the opposing rock without the least appearance of effort or embarrassment. Should a ledge be encountered wide enough, the chamois pauses, feeds, and resumes its upward or downward trip. By this method of bounding from surface to surface, a chamois can scale the inner angle of a garden wall.