392 THE SHEEP OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



remarkable, received him with a cordial shake of the hand, 

 desired him to be seated, and entered freely into conversation 

 with him. While Mr. Elliot may well be proud of such an 

 honour, we doubt not but Her Majesty was also gratified by the 

 interview, and thought him both in appearance and intelligence 

 an admirable type of the Scottish Borderer. Market localities, 

 and names of celebrated Cheviot breeders mentioned in the above 

 paragraph, refer to some nine or ten years ago. Changes have 

 taken place during these years, and some of the most eminent 

 breeders have gone over to the '' majority," leaving their fame 

 behind them. 



Harking back from this digression to our subject, there is 

 perhaps no finer animal of the sheep species than the Cheviot 

 tup. Possessing the general conformation of the Border 

 Leicester, he is altogether a more stylish sheep, carrying his 

 head higher, with greater fire in his eye and grace in his move- 

 ment. Compared with the Leicester, he is as a cavalier to an 

 alderman. 



Besides reproducing their own kind, the Cheviots are valuable 

 for crossing with the Border Leicesters ; the former giving 

 hardihood, the latter great tendency to fatten. By infusing the 

 two breeds in different proportions, other breeding stocks are 

 raised, suited to medium soils and temperatures. Thus, taking 

 the Leicesters as the centre of agricultural improvement, the 

 others may be said to radiate. First, we find three-parts bred in 

 the intermediate ; next, half-bred in the higher altitudes ; then 

 we come to Cheviot entire on their native mountains; and 

 above and beyond them our old favourites the black-faced, 

 among their fastnesses of rock and purple heather. 



Cheviot sheep are seldom shorn before July, the weight and 

 fineness of the fleece depending on the nature of the pasturage ; 

 the texture being finer on dry, sweet herbage than on coarse 

 grass, and bringing a higher price. It has a steadier demand 

 than almost any other, being extensively employed in the manu- 

 facture of tweeds, now so commonly used in clothing, from the 

 prince to the peasant. Coming down from the poetry, so asso- 

 ciated with the Cheviots in the lights and shadows of pastoral 

 life, to the inevitable prose — for to mutton they must all come 

 in the end — that of the Cheviot sheep may fairly be put 



