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XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 409 
ings, and contentions among the farmers of the 
neighbourhood ; so it occurred to Seth Wright, 
who was, like his successors, more or less ’cute, that 
if he could get a stock of sheep like those with the 
_bandy legs, they would not be able to jump over 
_ the fences so readily ; and he acted upon that idea. 
"He killed his old ram, and as soon as the young 
one arrived at maturity, he bred altogether from 
it. The result was even more striking than in the 
human experiment which I mentioned just now. 
Colonel Humphreys testifies that it always hap- 
pened that the offspring were either pure Ancons 
or pure ordinary sheep ; that in no case was there 
any mixing of the Ancons with the others. In 
consequence of this, in the course of a very few 
_ years, the farmer was able to get a very consider- 
able flock of this variety, and a large number of 
them were spread throughout Massachusetts. Most 
unfortunately, however—I suppose it was because - 
_they were so common—nobody took enough notice 
of them to preserve their skeletons ; and although 
Colonel Humphreys states that he sent a skeleton 
to the President of the Royal Society at the same 
time that he forwarded his paper, I am afraid 
that the variety has entirely disappeared; for a 
: short time after these sheep had become prevalent 
; in that district, the Merino sheep were introduced ; 
_and as their wool was much more valuable, and as 
they were a quiet race of sheep, and showed no 
" tendency to trespass or jump over fences, the Otter 
1 
