Young: Asiatic Breeds of Sheep 



431 



AFGHAN FINEWOOL SHEEP 



Figure 34. By mixture with the finewool breeds the fur sheep industry of Central Asia 

 is being rapidly and permanently ruined, as Karakul sheep contaminated with this strain will 

 not produce skins with the prized tight, lustrous curls. The shepherds are Afghans, photo- 

 graphed by the author at Karshi, near the border of Afghanistan. 



all of these characteristics except that 

 some of the bucks are horned, come 

 black at birth, turn gray at maturity, 

 and the tail formation is such as to 

 make them typical members of the 

 broadtail breeds. It is true that Sinit- 

 zin's Doozbai contains much more fat- 

 rump admixture, evidenced by a broad 

 tail of tremendous size. While many 

 of them have enough black Danadar 

 in them to come black, the majority of 

 them come red, and in selecting them 

 one should avoid those specimens in 



which the tail bears too close a resem- 

 blance to the fat pillows of the fat- 

 rumps. 



As far as Sinitzin's Shiraz is con-' 

 cerned, that is largely a myth, but one 

 finds, here and there, a typical Dooz- 

 bai whose offspring come gray. The 

 white is no doubt due to the little white 

 Afghan finewool, the black that of the 

 Danadar, and the red ( I have seen 

 Shiraz skins with all three of these 

 colors) that of the fatrump. In all 

 my three importations I brought only 



