114 ON THE CHEVIOT BREED OF SHEEP. 



who took from the Cheviot Hills 500 sheep, and placed them in 

 Langwell, a farm on the southern hovmdaries of Caithness-sliire, 

 and which afterwards, when in the possession of the late Mr 

 Donald Home, became known in connection with successful 

 show-yard appearances of the breed. Sir John, who was thus 

 the means of having the sheep introduced into Caithness-shire, 

 does not deal out liis jDraise in any stinted way. In the Cheviot, 

 he thinks the country had what might be called a perfect moun- 

 tain sheep, both in respect to form and fleece. " Perhaps," he 

 says, " there is no part of the whole island where at first sight a 

 fine-woolled breed of sheep is less to be expected than among the 

 Cheviot Hills. DurinGf winter the hills are covered with snow 

 for two, three, and sometunes four months, and they have an 

 ample proportion of bad weather during the other seasons of the 

 year, and yet a sheep is to be found that \vill thrive even in 

 the wildest part of it. Their shape is excellent, and their fore- 

 quarter in particular is distinguished by such justness of pro- 

 portion as to be equal in weight to the hind one. Their limbs are 

 of a length to fit them for travelling, and enable them to pass 

 over bogs and snows through wliich a shorter-legged animal could 

 not penetrate." 



With this sketch of their characteristics, Mr Culley, an 

 authority whose opinion cannot be passed by, does not agree, 

 because, he says, — " forequarter wanting depth in the chest, and 

 breadth both there and in the chine." A thiixl opmion, which is 

 of some weight, is that of " The Lammermuir Farmer," a breeder 

 and careful observer of sheep who lived in the early part of the 

 present century, and whose opinion has been honoured in being 

 quoted by Darwin. Tliis " Farmer " says that " they are horn- 

 less, the face and legs generally white, the eye lively and promi- 

 nent, the coimtenance open and pleasing, the ear large, and with 

 a long space from the ear to the eye, the body long, and hence 

 they are called long sheep, in distinction from the blackfaced 

 breed. They are full behind the shoulder, they have a lon>g 



appointed to visit the principal sheep districts of England and Scotland to 

 examine the different breeds and report upon their respective merits. During 

 these investigations, a breed was discovered on the borders of England and Scot- 

 land, which Sir John considered well-suited for being bred and reared in Highland 

 districts. They were white-faced, and from their length were called ' ' the long 

 sheep," in contradistinction to the short or blackfaced breed. To these sheep 

 Sir John gave the name of "the Cheviot breed," from the circumstance that they 

 were found in greatest perfection among the Cheviot Hills, and that he wished to 

 name them after a district so memorable in the history and traditions of the 

 country — the Che\^ot Hills being the scene of many conflicts between the English 

 and the Scotch. The name soon became a household word, for, on Mr Nasmyth, 

 one of the agents of the British Wool Society, visiting the southern districts of 

 Scotland some time afterwards, he found the long hill sheep of the east border 

 were better known even then by the name of Cheviots, and that the short hill 

 sheep, or blackfaced, were in some places termed the forest or T/in ton breed. — 

 Editor: 



