Permanence and Evolution. 51 



that the Mauchamp Merino descended from, or 

 had been crossed with, some unknown aboriginal 

 form. But in this case we happen to know on 

 the testimony of A. Sanson ("Bulletin de la 

 Societe d'Anthropologie," vol. iv. p. 267), than 

 whom no one is better acquainted with the 

 domestic animals of France, that this variation 

 appears occasionally wherever Merinos are kept, 

 at Rambouillet and elsewhere, and Graux has 

 only the merit of preserving and fostering it. 

 Knowing this, and knowing also as we appear to 

 (vide Low, " Domestic Animals,"* p. 134, et seq. ; 

 Youatt, " Sheep," p. 145) that the Merino is 

 itself a complex of various fine-woolled breeds 

 of antiquity, the suggestion seems to me almost 

 unavoidable that the silky-woolled Merino 

 represents an aboriginal form. 



Of the other, the ancon, or otter breed, 



* The Spanish sheep we find from Columella were crossed 

 with Italian and with African sheep, and the coloration of 

 modern Merinos has been supposed to bear traces of the black, 

 red, and tawny strains mentioned by modern authors. 



