30 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



frequently an individual is blotched with two or three of 

 these different colours. In some of the low islands, where 

 the pasture answers, the wool of this small sheep is of the 

 finest kind, and the same with that of Shetland. In the 

 mountainous islands, the animal is found of the smallest size, 

 with coarser wool, and with this very remarkable character, 

 that it has often four, and sometimes even six horns." 



How much Walker really knew about the Hebridean 

 sheep of his time it is hard to say, but there is no evidence 

 of the existence of sheep with short, straight horns anywhere 

 in Scotland at the present day ; and from what we know 

 about the introduction, not only of Black-faces, but also of 

 Spanish Merinos, which about this period were introduced 

 into many parts of Scotland, it is probable that except 

 in the more remote islands, crossing had already taken place. 



Harvie-Brown and Buckley, in their Fauna of the Outer 

 Hebrides, say very little about the sheep, except that four- 

 horned sheep were not uncommon in Harris and North Uist, 

 and that they had heard that even six-horned animals were not 

 unusual. But I cannot find a specimen in any museum or collec- 

 tion to-day, except what have been bred in parks ; and though I 

 have myself seen in an island in West Loch Tarbert, Harris, 

 in 1868, a ram with a fifth horn standing a foot or more high 

 between the others, I cannot hear of any such alive at the 

 present time. 



Millais figured, in Mammals of Great Britain, vol. iii., 

 p. 212, fig. 4, the head of a Hebridean ram which has two 

 horns, very much of the same type as those of my Soay 

 rams, but longer, more spreading, and not so thick at the 

 base. They are not at all like those of the so-called St 

 Kilda sheep, or are they remarkable for their size. He 

 informs me that he bought the animal alive in N. Uist from 

 a crofter, and had to shoot it, as it was very wild. I have seen 

 very similar horns on the old Norfolk Black-faced ram, and 

 such a head might very well represent a primitive race from 

 which the improved Black-faced Scotch sheep has been derived. 



Mr A. M'Elfrish of Lochmaddy, in answer to my 

 inquiries, writes as follows : — " I am afraid the subject 

 is a pretty obscure one. There is certainly at the 



