2 the scottish naturalist 



The Native Sheep of Shetland. 



According to Youatt and other writers, the Shetland 

 sheep were originally of Danish or Scandinavian origin, but 

 little if any reliable information seems available on this point ; 

 most accounts seem to be based rather on hearsay than on 

 personal knowledge or research. 



An exception is, however, to be found in Dr L. Edmon- 

 ston's General Observations on Shetland, 1 840, who said : 

 " The sheep is small, not often horned, ears pointed and 

 erect, face, back and tail short, fine -boned, legs long; 

 naturally wild, active, and hardy, and little liable to disease. 

 The colour generally white, sometimes ferruginous, grey, 

 black, or piebald ; the wool very soft and often fine. The 

 more damp and moory the pasture, the softer is the wool ; one 

 of the causes of which probably is deficient strength and 

 nourishment, another is the astringent nature of the food. A 

 serious casualty affecting the value of a Shetland flock arises 

 from the constant vicinity of precipices facing the sea ; and 

 great losses by their falling over the rocks are often 

 sustained. 



" No breed can, as a rule, be better adapted to the 

 Shetlands, than those that are native in them, and as they 

 are always in demand, we should do well zealously to 

 cultivate them. All that is necessary is such a sufficiency of 

 food and care as will not encroach too closely on their habits 

 and hardihood, and a persevering selection of the best 

 animals for breeders ; yet if premiums had been offered for 

 producing change and degeneracy, it is difficult to imagine a 

 course better calculated to produce them than that which 

 has usually been pursued." 



Of the truth of this latter statement I had ample evidence 

 when I visited Shetland in 191 1, for, except in some parts 

 of Wales, I have never seen sheep so neglected as on the 

 common grazings of the Shetlands. 



H. Evershed, who published a good paper on the 

 agriculture of Shetland in the Highland Societies' Trans- 

 actions about thirty-five years ago, states that the Black-faced 

 breed was able to live and thrive wherever the native sheep 



