The Scottish Naturalist 



No. i] 1912 [January 



NOTES ON THE PRIMITIVE BREEDS OF 

 SHEEP IN SCOTLAND. 



By H. J. Elwes, F.R.S. 

 Plates I. -III. 



The chief object of these notes is to draw the attentibi 

 Scottish Naturalists to a subject which has been very much 

 neglected, and on which our knowledge is very imperfect 

 indeed. No country in the world has a greater interest in sheep 

 than Scotland ; no country has produced more distinguishec 

 sheep-breeders and shepherds. For 1 50 years Scottish breeders 

 have been improving the native breeds, and have sent them 

 all over the temperate regions of the world, to improve the 

 flocks of other countries. But though Youatt, Low, and other 

 agricultural writers have written on the breeds which they 

 knew, and Prof. R. Wallace has given an admirable account 

 of improved British breeds, zoologists as a rule have entirely 

 passed by the primitive breeds from which our modern sheep 

 are descended ; and so no specimens of domestic sheep have 

 been preserved in museums until quite recently ; the collection 

 is very incomplete even in the British Museum, where a hall 

 is now devoted to domesticated animals. I have to thank 

 Prof. Ewart and Mr Eagle Clarke especially for much valuable 

 help, and hope that the deficiencies of these notes may be 

 overlooked. 



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