310 account of the Boucharlanjheep. Aug. r%, 



Boucharian breed. Pliny tells us, that the Syrian 

 iheep have long fat tails, and carry wool^ ; and by 

 Rufsell's account of them in his Natural History of 

 Aleppo, they resemble the Kirguise Iheep in the 

 head, face, and ears hanging on the cheeks ; but the 

 tail is that of the Boucharian, fat above with a long 

 leau appendage : he adds, that they are covered with 

 a soft wool, which is another trait of resemblance 

 ■with our present variety; and that they weigh some- 

 times an hundred and fifty pounds, one third of which 

 is the weight of the tail. Gesner, in his work on 

 quadrupeds, tells us that the Arab Iheep of Kay, 

 have nearly the same characteristic marks, especi- 

 ally with regard to the tail. 



Shaw relates in his travels, that Iheep with such 

 a compound tail, are common in Mauritania, and 

 in all the east. Whilst Kolbe afsures us, that 

 the fheep which are brought on board the fhips at 

 the Cape of Good Hope, have tails weighing twen- 

 ty-five or thirty pounds, fat above, with a bony ap- 

 pendage hanging from it ; and lastly the abbe De- 

 manent, in his new history of Africa, mentioned in 

 a former article, says that flieep are found in Africa 

 covered with wool, and with such a tail as we have been 

 describing ; whilst at Cape Guarda in the south of 

 Africa, all the ftieep are white, with rather small 

 black heads, otherv/ays a large handsome breed. 

 "uiith broad fat tails, six or eight inches long. 



The doctor however does not entirely close his 

 proofs here, for he quotes several pafsages from 

 Moses in confirmation of what he has advanced, viz. 

 that the Boucharian fhcep obtain in Sjria, Palestine, 



