I02 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



ing to a breed probably descended from the same stock, 

 and at any rate so closely related and so similar to the 

 Scottish remnant that the description will stand, Professor 

 Wallace says : " The wool was of many colours white, 

 brown, black, and black and white of very fine quality, 

 but only about one and a half pounds per sheep. The 

 animals weighed only five or six pounds per quarter, and 

 they proved to be such indifferent nurses that they were 

 eventually put away, after producing, by Border Leicester 

 rams, lambs that ranked only as shots." Wallace goes 

 on to describe the persistence of the four-horned character 

 in progeny which is the result of crossing. 



The earliest reference to Scottish four-horned sheep 

 which fortune has placed in my way occurs in an account 

 of Scottish affairs by Bishop John Lesley, published in 

 Rome in 1578. The title of the Latin quarto runs: 

 Joannus Leslaens : De origine, moribus, et rebus gcstis 



him is that of Parkinson, 1810. That primitive breed was, however, 

 known to earlier agriculturists. In his Essays relating to Agriculture 

 and Rural Affairs, Edinburgh, 1777, where much interesting information 

 is to be found, Dr James Anderson (vol. ii., p. 165) says of Manx 

 sheep: "In the Isle of Man there is said to be another breed that 

 carries wool of a light buff "a clear reference to the peculiar snuff 

 colour known locally as " loaghtan." Again, in a footnote to a transla- 

 tion of Pallas's description of Russian sheep published in The Bee, and 

 some years later reprinted separately under the title of An Accowit of 

 the Different Kinds of Sheep found in the Russian Dominions, etc., with 

 five Appendixes tending to illustrate the Natural and Economic History 

 of Sheep and other Domestic Animals, by James Anderson, Edinburgh, 

 1794; the same writer remarks in a discussion of 'yellow" sheep 

 (p. 63 of separate publication): "In all the remote parts of Scotland 

 and the isles, where sheep have been in a great measure neglected, 

 and allowed to breed promiscuously, without any selection, there is to 

 be found a prodigious diversity of colours ; and, among others, dun 

 sheep, or those of a brownish colour tending to an obscure yellow, are 

 not infrequent. ... It is for this reason, and to save the trouble of dyeing, 

 that the poor people in the Highlands propagate black, and russet, and 

 brown and other coloured sheep, more than in any country where the 

 wool is regularly brought to market. In the Isle of Man a breed 

 of dun sheep is very common till this hour." I have little doubt 

 that the dun sheep of the " remote parts of Scotland and the isles " 

 were essentially of the same race as the dun sheep of the Isle of Man. 



