156 account of the fat rukpedPieep. At/g. '], 



\y to be fit lor the cloth ot" peasants, in a state of 



vafsalage *. 



T^he third variety. 

 TheSrEATOrrcA, or fat rump of F alias ; the OV^^ 



LaTICAUDATA of authors. 



This variety, which has no fixed trivial name, bat 

 is differently denominated in ev^ry country where it 

 is reared, is both the most abundant and largest 

 breed of fheep in the world. < 



It is reared throughout ail the temperate regions 

 of Asia, from the frontiers of Europe to those of 

 China, in the vast plains of Tartary. All the No- 

 inade hordes ot Asia, the Turcomans, Kirguise, 

 Calmouks, and iVlongal Tartars, rear it j and indeed 



* The coarsenefs of the fleece seems to be by no means a charac- 

 teristical peciiliarity of t!;is breed of (beep. The Shetland breed of 

 flieep is obviously referable to this clafs, and it produces the finest wool 

 of any that is yet known. I myself have seen an indefinite number 

 of varieties of this breed of fheep, each of them pofsefsin^ certain he- 

 reditary and distirgullliable peculiarities. Some of these carried wool 

 of the finest pile I have ever seen, and softest quality; wliile others 

 carried wool extremely coarse, and of very little value It would 

 seem that this last breed of this variety of flieep had chanced to be 

 very generally difseminated over the Rufsian empire. Smallnefs of 

 .size seems to be a very general distinguifiiing peculiarity of this breed 

 of flieep. The having or vcanting horns is 1 y no means characteris- 

 tic of this breed. Neither is the tendency to leannefs a permanent pe- 

 <!uliarity. The fattest flieep 1 ever killed was ofthis breed: it was 

 of a'very small size, — had run abroad all winter among a considerable 

 flock, which was not fed for the butehcr. It was killed in the 

 month of May. The hind quarter weighed Cnly five pounds and a 

 half, iixteen-oiinces to the pound, and it gave six pounds of tallow 

 twenty-six ounces to the pound — from which some idea may be had 

 >)f the u.iture «f the inuU^n. It was a ewe that had mifsed Jamb. 

 ' Edit. 



