The dahu is a legendary creature that resembles a mountain goat and is well known in France and francophone regions of Switzerland and Italy, including the Aosta Valley. The dahu, a quadrupedal mammal, may have been inspired by the chamois, a small, horned goat-antelope once plentiful in European mountainous regions, and also resembles the ibex. Regional variations on its name include dahut or dairi in Jura, darou in Vosges, daru in Picardy, darhut in Burgundy, daù in Val Camonica; also called a tamarou in Aubrac and Aveyron, and tamarro in Catalonia and Andorra. The dahu cub is called a dahuot. Description The dahu's principal distinguishing characteristic is that the legs on one side of its body are shorter than the legs on the opposite side, to facilitate standing on and walking on steep mountain slopes. In practical terms, the dahu's asymmetrical limbs allow it to walk around the circumference of the mountain in only one direction. Therefore, there are two different types of dahu: the laevogyrous dahu, with shorter legs on its left side, walks around the mountain counterclockwise; the dextrogyre dahu, with the shorter legs on its right side, walks clockwise around the mountain. Respectively, the terms dahu senestrus and dahu desterus have also been used. Hunting dahu Like another wildlife-related practical joke, the snipe hunt, pranksters may take a victim out at night with the stated intention of catching a dahu only to abandon the victim on the mountain. Jokers may also tell a gullible subject that to catch a dahu requires two people: one with a bag, and another who is good at imitating dahu sounds. The former stands at the bottom of the slope, and the other behind a dahu. When the dahu turns around to see the source of the sound, it will lose its balance and roll down the slope to the person with the bag. The rise of the dahu The dahu is a staple of 20th-century French popular culture, known in Lorraine, in the mountainous regions of eastern France (Alpes and Jura), and in French-speaking Switzerland as a theme of jokes among natives and a spoof for fooling young children. Its popularity began to soar toward the end of the 19th century. The budding tourism industry brought to the mountains wealthy city dwellers with a somewhat arrogant attitude and a paltry knowledge of the countryside. The mountaineers working as hunting guides would