THE BLACK-FACED OR SCOTCH MOUNTAIN SHEEP. 377 



the parents scarcely recognisable in the progeny. If the early 

 history of the black-faces has a foreign association, it must be 

 admitted they have crossed very successfully with the native 

 sheep. It is quite possible that the sheep of the royal farm 

 were not of foreign extraction at all, but only greatly improved 

 by cultivation and attention. In the present century we have 

 seen improved rams of the pure black-faced breed harmonise 

 astonishingly with ewes of the old variety. Whether foreign 

 blood was introduced or not, the South-west of Scotland un- 

 questionably has the credit of raising the black-faces to the 

 degree of perfection they have for a considerable number of 

 years displayed both north and south. 



In the course of the eighteenth century agriculture in Scotland 

 rallied from the grasp of the darker ages. The mountain lands 

 became safer for sheep, and in not a few instances these animals 

 exchanged attitudes with the cattle and horses, the fleecy tribes 

 generally taking the higher ground. The Weirs of Priesthill, 

 Muirkirk, Lanarkshire ; the Gillespies of Douglas Water, and 

 others, well nigh a century ago, did much to make the black- 

 faces what they have long been, and still are. Lanarkshire is 

 regarded as the headquarters of the black-faces, not so much 

 because that county produces the largest number of the finer 

 specimens of the breed, as from the fact that in it were effected 

 the earlier and more valuable improvements. The principal 

 market for black-faced stock is held at Lanark ; but Ayrshire, 

 Dumfriesshire, Peeblesshire, and Eoxburghshire produce large 

 numbers of high-bred animals, the first-named two counties in 

 particular. By tups from the best southern flocks the northern 

 mongrel sort of stocks have been immensely improved. Those 

 in the northern counties of Scotland who succeeded in growing 

 the better class of animals brought ewes as well as tups from 

 the south. Slowly during the present century the original 

 native breed in the Highlands was supplanted by the better class 

 of stock from the south ; and, excepting Orkney and Shetland, 

 there are not now many specimens entire of the time-honoured 

 dun-faces in Scotland. 



It is interesting and instructive to note the effects of climate 

 and geological formation on the distribution of our domesticated 

 animals ; the more closely we follow the teaching of nature the 



