3^ 



SHEEP. Class L 



clothed with a mixture of wool and hair ; and a 

 fourth fpecies, whofe fleih and fleeces are yellow, 

 af^heir teeth of the colour of gold •, but the truth 

 of thefe relations ought to be enquired into, as no 

 other writer has mentioned them, except the cre- 

 dulous Bcethius. Yet the laft particular is not to 

 be rejected : for notwithftanding I cannot inftance 

 thp teeth of fheep, yet I faw in the fummer of 

 1772, at Athol houfe, the jaws of an ox, with 

 teeth thickly incrufted with a gold colored pyrites ^ 

 and the fame might have happened to thofe of fheep 

 had they fed in the fame grounds, which were in 

 the valley beneath the houfe. 



Befides the fleece, there is fcarce any part of this 

 animal but what is ufeful to mankind. The flefh is 

 a delicate and wholefome food. The fkin drefied, 

 forms diflTerent parts of our apparel ; and is ufed 

 for covers of books. The entrails, properly pre- 

 pared and twifl:ed, ferve for firings for various mu- 



bus arietinis ; Linnaeus ftyles it Capra amnion. Syji. 97. and 

 Gefnerj p. 934. imagines it to be the Mufimon of the antients ; 

 the horns of the Siberian animal are two yards long, their 

 weight above thirty pounds. As we have fo good authority 

 for the exillence of fuch a quadruped, we might venture to 

 give credit to Boethius's account, that the fame kind was once 

 found in Hirta : but having thrice within thefe few years had 

 opportunity of examining the Mufimon, we found that both 

 in the form of the horns, and the Ihortnefs of the tail, it 

 had the greatefl agreement with the goat, in which genus we 

 have placed it No. 11. of our Synopf.s, with the trivial name 

 of Siberian, 



fical 



