378 THE SHEEP OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



more successful will be the result. The Scotch black-face is 

 more widelj distributed, and occupies a much greater area than 

 any other race of sheep in these islands, Thej can be traced in 

 unbroken succession from the Hebrides on the north far into 

 the interior of the north midland counties of England — the 

 mountain chain geologically known as the carboniferous lime- 

 stone and coal measures, which take their rise in North StafPord- 

 Bhire on the south, passing through Derbyshire and Yorkshire 

 to the borders of Scotland on the north, forming the great water- 

 shed of an extensive district. The range of hills is separated 

 by the vales of Kendal and Edon from the yet higher Silurian 

 mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; passing to Scot- 

 land we find the Silurian formation stretching from south-west 

 to north-east of the island, forming what are known as the 

 Carrick, Moorfoot, Pentland, and Lammermoor Hills. The same 

 geological formation extends through Cantyre, the Grrampians, 

 and part of the county of Sutherland. The whole of this exten- 

 sive range is tenanted principally by the black-faces, whilst at a 

 lower elevation they share with the muirfowl and plover the 

 wild heaths and rushy dells of Yorkshire, Durham, and North- 

 umberland in England, and the peaty and barren moors of 

 Galloway and Ayrshire in Scotland. 



The northern sheep are not nearly so well bred, nor are the 

 pastures quite so good as those in the south of Scotland, yet the 

 infusion of new blood has been so effectual that the features of 

 the " duns " are almost obliterated, with the exception already 

 made. The finer breeding flocks have long occupied the higher 

 grounds in Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, and Stirling- 

 shire ; but the number of black-faced or mountain sheep is not 

 so great as it was about the beginning of the present century. 

 The Cheviot sheep had encroached extensively on the black-faced 

 provinces throughout Scotland, notably along the west coast, 

 within the last fifty years. Some people say that the Cheviot is 

 as hardy as the black-faced, and that it will arrive earlier at 

 maturity, and carry a greater quantity of mutton, possessed of 

 quite as fine a flavour. The writer's experience leads him to 

 believe that the white-faces are not nearly so hardy as the black, 

 but the former will take on earlier a little more flesh, though the 

 flavour of the mutton is not so fine as a rule. The result of the 



