FITTING SHEEP FOR SHOW RING AND MARKET. 59 



PART II. 



The Evolution of the Modern Mutton Sheep. 



'HE modern mutton breeds of sheep are divided 

 into two classes, viz.: The Long-wools and 

 the Middle-wools. In the first-named class we 

 find enumerated the Lincoln, the Devon-Long- 

 wool, the Wensleydale, the Cotswold, the 

 Leicester, the Border-Leicester, the Romney-Marsh or Kentish 

 sheep, etc. Among the Middle-wools we find the Southdown, 

 the Shropshire, the Oxford, the Hampshire, the Suffolk and 

 the Dorset. 



With the exception of the Dorset, all of the above 

 named breeds have undergone a most wonderful and agree- 

 able transformation during the past few years, and espe- 

 cially is this true of the Shropshire, Hampshire and Oxford 

 among the down breeds, and the Lincoln, Romney-Marsh 

 and Devon-Long-wool among those of the Long-wooled 

 breeds. 



Comparatively speaking, it is not so very long since the 

 ancestors of the present beautiful breeds of sheep were 

 roaming the Downs and marshes of England in a nomadic 

 sort of way. But now this is all changed. Fences have 

 been built; bogs have been drained; marshes have been 

 reclaimed from the sea and in the place of the slab-sided, 

 narrow-chested, poor-fleeced, long-legged, thin-fleshed ani- 



