554: SHEEP -MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



tion to the high and exposed character of the country on the 

 coal formation (26 miles by 20) which it occupies on the 

 confines of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire. It is 

 possessed of a very long tail, and it is said on authority to 

 resemble most the Lonk of the various Heath breeds to 

 which it is related. (See also Appendix S, p. 740.) 



The Old Norfolk Horned breed belongs, on the authority 

 of Prof. Low, to "the same general type as the Blackface 

 Heath breed," although, owing to its location on light chalky 

 soils in a dry climate, the " wool, 2 \ to 4' Ibs. the fleece, is 

 fine and ' silky,' and possessed of sufficient felting properties to 

 fit it for being made into second or livery cloth." It proved 

 in competition with imported merino wool to be inferior 

 for this purpose, and the breed has become almost extinct. 

 "They were long the prevailing breed of Norfolk and 

 Suffolk," but in Low's time (1845) the earlier maturity 

 breeds, chiefly the South Down, had driven them out of 

 the better country to the " higher lands of Norfolk, Suffolk, 

 and Cambridgeshire." They were noted, says Low, for 

 "hardiness and robustness, great length of limbs, and flat- 

 ness and lankiness in the body, and too great wildness of 

 temper. . . . They hold their necks erect, and in their carriage 

 resemble antelopes. . . . No finer lambs are brought to the 

 English markets than the first crosses between them and 

 Leicester or South Down rams." The small extant remnant 

 of the breed is to be found in the flocks of T. Betts, 

 Mangreen, Norfolk ; Lord Coke, of Holkham ; Russell Colman, 

 of Crown Pound, Norwich ; and the Executors of the late 

 Col. Harry M'Calmont, Newmarket, Cambridge. The last- 

 named flock contains thirty-five ewes, which yield about 8 Ibs. 

 of wool each. The wether sheep are kept till three years 

 old, and disposed of to the butchers at Newmarket Christmas 

 market, at prices up to 6 guineas each. The symmetry of 

 the breed has been enormously improved by selection and 

 in-breeding, and it now consists of remarkably handsome 

 animals with jet-black faces and legs, gay, high-set, expand- 

 ing horns, and black-spotted bodies (Plate CLXIIL). The 

 ewes are very prolific, excellent mothers, and good grazers, but 

 they require a large roam. They never suffer from foot-rot, 

 and so free are they from the common diseases, that old 



