THE BLACKFACED BREED OF SHEEP. 229 



on the parish of Urr by the Eev. James Muirhead. This writer, 

 after pointing out " that in the reign of James VI. Galloway was 

 understood " to produce the finest wool in Scotland, perhaps in 

 Britain, fixes the date of the introduction of the blackfaced as 

 about the time the king left Scotland for England (in 1603), and 

 then asks, " Whence these sheep came '? " " It may be observed," 

 he says, " that Gralloway abounds with goats, which in the marshy 

 or soft tracts are almost uniformly of a black colour ;" and then 

 he gives some countenance to the theory that the goats and sheep 

 bred toofether, mentionino- that moncjrels or crosses between the 

 two animals were quite common. Bub while he ventures on 

 this suggestion, ^luirhead confesses that any inquiry upon the 

 subject is not attended with much satisfaction. Then again, 

 another and more widely accepted opinion has been, that the 

 breed travelled northward from Yorkshire. This hypothesis 

 was brought forward by Marshall, the author of numerous 

 agricultural works at the end of last century. There is, however, 

 this objection to accepting Marshall's authority, that in two 

 separate works, published witliin a few years of one another, he 

 makes statements that are slightly at variance. In a work on 

 the Rural Economy of Yorkshire, published in 1788, in speaking 

 of the moorland sheep, he says they " are probably of Scotch 

 origin," adding that " they resemble much the Scotch sheep which 

 are sometimes brought into the vale." Six years afterwards 

 Marshall must have had but an indistinct recollection of what 

 he had \vritten in 1788. In an essay published in 1794, on the 

 agriculture of the central Highlands of Scotland, he states " that 

 the breed, which is now supplanting the ancient breed of the 

 Highlands, is that which is well known in Scotland by the name 

 of ihe blackfaced breed, which on the southern hills, as well as 

 in the highlands or mountains of Braemar, is the established 

 breed." .Then, in dealing with the question of the origin of the 

 breed, he gives altogether vague testimony. " Whether this 

 breed has heretofore travelled northwards from the moorlands 

 of Yorkshire, where a similar breed has been so long established 

 as to be deemed natural to a heathy or mountainous situation, 

 or whetlier that breed was drawn ori^inallv from Scotland, 

 might perhaps be easily traced upon the southern borders." 

 Further examination of the recorded opinion of many writers 

 leads to no more satisfactory result. So much is tlependent 

 on conjecture, that it is quite impossible to form any definite 

 opinion based on reliable grounds. This view is fortified by 

 the position taken u]» by two writers whose opinion carries 

 considerable weight. Naismyth of Hamilton, writing in Young's 

 Aniuds of Afjriculturc, in 1700, descriptive of a visit he had 

 made to Lammermuir, states that the l)reed prevalent there was 

 " the blackfaced muir kind, having generally liorns, and called 

 the short slicep," but that " it is impossible to trace their origin, 



