528 SHEEP MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



(washed) wool, stiff, straight, dense, and not too short. Hard 

 feeding makes it stronger. The Cheviot should live and thrive 

 well on the poorest keep, and when taken to the lower 

 ground grow larger, and in time become fat." 



Horns in the ram (Plate CL.), though not always present, 

 are not objected to, being considered a sign of hardiness. 

 They are " clean," not thick and ringed or rough like those 

 of the Blackface breed. 



The tail is long, and it is usually cut so that the point 

 reaches the hock, 1 but closer docking may become necessary 

 with changes which are progressing in the systems of 

 management. 



The shoulders are high, and sharp at the withers, but not 

 too sharp else the sheep is liable to be slack behind the 

 shoulders. They must rise, however, to get style. 



The fashionable form of Cheviot is now shorter, smaller, 

 and more compact, and the wool closer and thicker set than 

 formerly, since a series of bad seasons, down to 1879, showed 

 that the larger, longer varieties with loose open fleeces were 

 not so hardy. 



For several decades before that time, beginning about the 

 middle of the century, the so-called " improved Cheviots " were 

 all the rage. They were developed by James Brydon, who 

 died in 1887 (designated by himself " a man among sheep, but 

 a sheep among men "), on the farms of Moodlaw, Eskdale- 

 muir (till 1869), and Appin, Tynron, Dumfriesshire, Kinnel- 

 head, and the Holm of Dalquhairn, given up in 1887. At 

 his bi-annual sale in September at Beattock, which was dis- 

 continued about 1880, highly fed and excellently dressed 

 rams, numbering 150 to 180, with beautiful form and stylish 

 gait, were sold at high prices, averaging ;i 5 to 17, and there 

 remained hardly a stock in the country that was not im- 

 pregnated with the blood. A few trying years of bad weather 

 sufficed to show that in attaining size and beauty, Brydon 

 had got on the wrong tack, and had sacrificed hardihood 



1 The tails of mountain sheep are usually left long to protect the 

 udders in cold weather, and because, on natural food, they are not so 

 liable to scour and become dirty behind as sheep on turnips and luxuriant 

 green forage. Shetland and Iceland sheep have not tails long enough to 

 act as a protection, but there is an unusual amount of wool on the inner 

 part of the thighs, which serves the purpose equally well. 



