32 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



that if it exists, and this illustration is recognised, it may 

 be still brought to light. 



The only one that I have seen approaching it in size was a 

 ram belonging to Sir B. Brooke, which I saw in Colebrooke 

 Park, County Fermanagh, three years ago. 



A race of small black sheep, of which the males have often 

 — in some flocks usually — and the females more rarely, four 

 horns, is kept in several English parks under the name of St 

 Kilda sheep, but they are in most cases of uncertain origin, 

 and more or less crossed with Black Welsh or other small 

 breeds. The shortness of their tails is a good indication of 

 pure blood. All of them seem to be able to live like deer, 

 without attention, and to be almost immune from maggots 

 and foot-rot. Perhaps the largest flock is that of Mr Leopold 

 de Rothschild — the Earl of Portsmouth and the Duke of 

 Bedford also have good specimens. 



So far as I can learn, there has been no special attempt 

 made to select the four-horned character which seems to 

 prevail among the rams in these flocks, but they are very 

 variable in type. Mr R. H. Holding, in Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 1903, pp. 116-119, describes and figures four heads, but he 

 tells us little about their origin. In Proc. Zool. Soc, 1909, 

 pp. 98-100, he returns to the same subject, and figures a more 

 typical ram's head (fig. a) which is very like the Shetland 

 four-horned and Icelandic type. His figure c represents 

 a ram then in the possession of Mr E. M. Machugh, which 

 is supposed to be that of a pure Black-faced ram, selected by 

 the owner from the produce of a four-homed ram lamb which 

 appeared in his flock, but this seems so like the heads of 

 cross-bred Manx Black-faces, figured by Professor Wallace 

 in Farm Live Stocky that I suspect it must be due to a cross 

 of Hebridean origin, as I can hear of no four-horned rams 

 occurring among really pure-bred Black-faced sheep. 



I have a skull of a four-horned ewe from Mr L. de Roths- 

 child's park, which is as good an example as I have seen 

 in this sex, for when four horns appear, as they often do 

 in the ewes of this breed, they are generally small and 

 irregular. 



( To be continued?) 



