30 FIELD AND FERN. 



suits, and require the most careful drafting to 

 keep them at nine hands. Mr. Balfour has about 

 forty in all, of which the majority are duns and 

 creams ; and they are always broken at three, and 

 made very tractable in a week. Her Majesty has 

 had a pair of them ; and some of the more fancy 

 colours were once picked up by Ducrow. 



Hellersay is also held by some crosses of South- 

 downs with the native Orkney, which have horns 

 and tufts, and are nearly as bizarre in their shape and 

 colour, but weigh a trifle more. The second cross 

 with the Leicester tup is more delicate, but on good 

 pasture both first and second average from 181bs. to 

 SOlbs. per quarter. In shape, but not in size, the 

 first cross strains to the dam ; and when the Orkney 

 tup is used, the lamb still keeps the " bristling" head 

 and scrubby tail of its sire. On the whole, the South- 

 down cross seems to ' ' nick" well, but the twist is 

 hardly full enough till the third generation. The 

 native sheep have always been a vagrant race, and 

 they follow the tide when it ebbs, with a fine eye to 

 the seaweed. A Highland Society essayist speaks 

 of them forty years ago as only clipping l|lbs., and 

 " thriving in holms not secure from eagles and cor- 

 bies." In Shapinsey, about that date, there would be 

 fully fourteen hundred, and men who never paid a 

 half-penny of rent would have flocks of sixty or 

 seventy. In Holm alone there were fully nine hun- 

 dred, where none are to be found now, as the cottars 

 will not use a tup of the sort, and go for a cross of 



