White. — On Breeding Black Sheep. 197 



heavier weight. This flock is mentioned by Bruni in his 

 work " Sheep-breeding in Australia." 



There are several other flocks of black merinos in Aus- 

 tralia, the best known being those of Mr. W. A. Murray, 

 Cappeedee, South Australia, and Mr. H. Beattie, Mount Ait- 

 kin. Mr. P. McFarland also had a black flock at Barooga, 

 New South Wales. 



My own coloured flock was commenced about ten years 

 ago from a mixed lot of merino and Lincoln-merino ewes 

 which I obtained by writing a circular letter to many of the 

 principal sheep-owners in Hawke's Bay, asking for the gift of 

 their black or coloured ewe lambs for the season. Messrs. 

 Nelson Brothers, of the meat-freezing works at Tomoana, 

 kindly offered to receive and paddock any black lambs for- 

 warded for this purpose in mobs of fat wethers sent to their 

 works until such time as a drive of black lambs should be 

 collected together. Those collected, including some brought 

 to Mr. John Harding's station at Mount Vernon, Waipukurau, 

 made a total of ninety, which I brought on to my present 

 location at Wimbledon. These ewes were bred to a reddish- 

 coloured crossbred rani obtained for me by Mr. J. N. 

 Williams, of Frimley, and the lambs of the first season — 

 the produce of the black or coloured ewes, sired by the 

 reddish-coloured ram — were all so-called black lambs. A few 

 were parti-coloured or greyish, and several were tan-coloured, 

 but there was not a single white lamb among them. Of the 

 lighter coloured, or greys, it was noticeable that the lower 

 parts of the body and the legs were of a distinctly darker hue 

 than the back and sides, giving them the appearance of a wet 

 water-mark such as would result from wading through dis- 

 coloured water: their ears and faces were mostly a good black, 

 and below either eye was a small oval or lozenge-shaped spot 

 of white. These white marks may possibly be found to occur 

 as special marks among one of the feral forms of the genus 

 Ovis, and, if so, might thereby show a connection by descent 

 of the domestic sheep from the feral Ovidce having similar 

 white spots on the face. 



Charles Darwin and others specially discuss the subject of 

 those singular circular tan spots seen on many different breeds 

 of dogs, but are unable to point to any feral Ganidce carrying 

 similar tan spots. One writer in Nature went so far as to 

 suggest that the tan spots on the dog's forehead were spe- 

 cially designed to give the seeming of watchful eyes when the 

 dog was sleeping, forgetting that the dog when at rest is 

 mostly coiled in a circular form with the face turned inward. 



For upwards of ten years I have continued to breed these 

 black sheep, using black rams with a strong infusion of the 

 Lincoln blood, and with the exception of one or two cases, 



