MOUNTAIN BREEDS. 



The mountain sheep are distinguished by their hardiness (which 

 includes not merely the power to withstand severe climates, but the 

 ability to live and thrive on very poor food and to find that food 

 when it is thinly distributed over very large areas), activity, small 

 size, and extremely high quality of mutton. The majority are pro- 

 vided with horns, though in some breeds the ewes are hornless and 

 in others both sexes are polled. The wool, like the size, varies 

 according to the conditions under which the sheep are kept. As 

 a rule it is coarse, with more or less kemp, but when the sheep 

 are kept under more favourable conditions it becomes finer and 

 softer. The chief mountain breeds are the Blackface, with the 

 allied Lonk, Derbyshire Gritstone, Rough Fell, Swaledale, Lime- 

 stone and Penistoue, the Cheviot, Welsh Mountain, Herdwick, 

 Exmoor Horn, and Dartmoor, though the last-mentioned in many 

 respects approaches the Longwool type. 



Mountain sheep in their native habitat are naturally slow in 

 maturing and in fattening, but as a rule the lambs, when brought 

 down to lower ground and better food, fatten quite readily. The 

 ewes are almost without exception good milkers and mothers, 

 though not remarkable for great prolificacy, which would be un- 

 desirable in view of the general inferiority of the food. The draft 

 ewes are generally taken to lower ground and crossed with 

 Longwool or Down rams, often with a view to producing early 

 fat lambs, in which case both lambs and ewes are sold fat early in 

 summer. 



True Mountain breeds are probably very rarely permanently 

 modified by crossing with Lowland or less hardy sheep. Such 

 crosses may do well enough for a time, but sooner or later comes 

 a hard season, or succession of hard seasons, which weeds out, 

 either directly or indirectly, all except those whose constitutions 

 have been fitted by generations of natural selection to withstand 

 the particular local 'combination of adverse conditions. 



BLACKFACED MOUNTAIN BREEDS. 



This group of allied breeds was referred to by Professor Low as 

 the Blackfaced Heath Breed, and was classed as having descended 

 from the earlier Forest breed of the country. The exact origin of 

 the race is unknown, but it is quite certain that it has existed much 

 as it is to-day for centuries, and it seems probable that the Pennine 

 district was its original home. The North of England is still one 

 of the chief centres for Blackfaced sheep, though owing to greater 

 attention having been paid to the breed north of the border and the 

 greater numbers kept, a more distinct and uniform type has been 

 evolved there, and the specific term " Blackface " is usually 

 associated with the Scotch or Highland branch of the family. 



Low located the habitat of the Blackfaced Heath Breed in 

 the following words : " It is chiefly found in the most northerly 

 divisions of the chain of rugged heathy mountains from the high 

 lands of Derbyshire on the south, to the confines of Scotland in the 

 North. The breed extends across the Vales of Kendal and Eden 

 to the higher mountains of Cumberland and Westmorland on the 



