662 



SHEEP. 



ragged wound that it must inflict ; but they are 

 nothing compared with the teeth with which the 

 sides of the back are beset ; they are large and 

 strong, firmly rooted like teeth, an<5 about eighteen 

 or twenty on each edge of the back ; the point of the 

 blade is not sharp ; and, in fact, the whole weapon 

 is one fitted for tearing and mangling rather than 

 for simply wounding. Of course such a blade must 

 be moved with great force before it can do its work ; 

 and the fish is well favoured for effecting this ; it 

 attains a great length ; and as the first dorsal and the 

 very large pectorals are placed on nearly the same 

 part of the length, it can swing upon them in every 

 direction as upon a universal joint, and so deliver its 

 weapon in any quarter where it may have the greatest 

 effect. This, and not the sword-fish, which is a bony 

 fish of the mackarel family (see SCOMEERID^), is the 

 fish which is so mortal an enemy to the whale, in 

 company, as is said, with the fox shark, but we 

 believe that, far to the norlh, it is with the Greenland 

 shark. The weapon of the saw-fish is, in the very 

 large ones, about six feet long, and the animal can 

 plunge it into the body of a whale the whole length. 

 Nor have we any reason to doubt that, when the 

 fish takes a rush from a distance, in order to deliver 

 its weapon, it has force enough to accomplish this, 

 for it sometimes runs the snout into the timbers of a 

 ship in the same manner as is done by the sword-fish. 



Saw-Pish. 



It is probable that this one uses the sword for the 

 purpose of killing, in order to eat ; for, though the 

 saw-fish could no more swallow a whale than the 

 sword-fish, yet it has powerful teeth, and could bite 

 off pieces, an operation for which the toothless mouth 

 of the sword-fish is not at all adapted. It should 

 seem, therefore, that whenever the stabbing of the 

 Greenland whale by any ferocious fish is mentioned, 

 the present species, and not the sword-fish, should 

 be understood. This understanding gets us out of 

 another difficulty. In all such accounts of battles as 

 that related by Captain Crow, of which some account 

 will be found in the section Sword-fish, us above 

 referred to, it is stated that the stabbing fishes are in 

 numbers ; whereas, even in our seas, it arrives only 

 singly, and that but rarely ; nor is it for feeding in 

 concert that sword-fishes congregate. All the Squalidce 

 hunt in packs ; and thus, whether the object of their 

 hunting be a whale, or anything else, we may expect 

 them to follow the general law of their family. 



Such is a very brief outline of the shark family, 

 one of the least valuable, in so far as human food is 

 concerned, of any that are to be found in the sea ; 

 but, taken as part of wild nature, and as showing the 

 power and the beauty with which created things are 

 adapted to the end which they are appointed to 

 accomplish, one of the most instructive that can be 

 made the subject of human observation and reflection. 



SHEEP (Ovis). A genus of ruminating mamma- 

 lia with horns, placed, in Cuvier's arrangement, after 

 the goats, and before the oxen, but having far more 

 resemblance to the former than the latter. It has, 



indeed, been pretty generally alleged that sheep and 

 goats not only can produce, but actually have pro- 

 duced, a mongrel breed, which continues fertile as 

 well as either of the races which are blended in its 

 formation. It must not, however, be supposed that, 

 in the " Regne Animal," Cuvier actually asserts that 

 the mules between the goats and sheep continue 

 fertile in the mixed blood, so as to obtain a flock, a 

 breed, in which the qualities of goat and sheep shall 

 be blended together. His words are, " Us (the sheep) 

 tneritent si peu d'etre separes generiquement des 

 chevres,qu'ils produisent avec ellesdes petits feconds." 

 This is true, and we may add, that whenever any 

 two species of animals are so nearly allied in their 

 structures and their modes of life, as to produce 

 a. hybrid at all, that hybrid is always fertile. But it 

 is fertile to return to the pure blood only, and not to 

 remain in the same state of mixture from generation 

 to generation. We must not, however, seek for any 

 distinctions founded on the production of animals, 

 beyond these three ; first, that the race continues, 

 without any return to another species ; secondly, that 

 there are mules which will only breed back again ; 

 and, thirdly, that there are cases in which no mule 

 is or can be produced. Taking this as the founda- 

 tion, the first of these would determine what were 

 the same species ; the second what were not the 

 same species, but the same genus ; and the third, 

 what were different genera. If this could be esta- 

 blished in all cases, and referred to at all times, there 

 is no doubt that it would be an excellent foundation 

 for a systematic arrangement of the animal kingdom. 

 But there are no means of doing this in one case out 

 of ten thousand ; and therefore, though we may 

 appeal to it in common cases, it is really of no value 

 whatever. The distinction between genus and genus 

 is not founded in nature. It is an application of art 

 which man makes, in the hope of thereby shortening 

 the road to knowledge whether he always does so 

 by means of it is another matter. It is thus quite 

 clear that the greater part of our systematic distinc- 

 tions must be purely artificial ; and* all that we have 

 to do is to take care not to impute to nature that 

 which is our own doings ; for we may appropriate 

 nature to ourselves without the slightest injury. 



But, to return to our subject, sheep have been 

 broken down into such a number of breeds by artificial 

 means, that is, by climate, food, and attendance, that 

 we cannot help admitting that they may have been 

 to a very great extent changed by nature in the same 

 way ; and though, of the few races of them that still 

 remain in a state of nature, those which have their 

 pastures very different, in a physical point of view, 

 are themselves different, yet they may have been all 

 originally from the same stock. It would, however, 

 be a waste of time to go further into the details of 

 this part of the subject, than the statement of the 

 principle to guard against positive assertion, where 

 there is or can be no real knowledge. The generic 

 characters of the sheep are founded on its structure, 

 which is open to all, and not on its physiology, which 

 is more limited. In this simple and popular view of 

 it the following are the characters usually given : the 

 horns angular in their erection, furrowed across, bent 

 laterally into spirals, and formed upon a cone of 

 spongy bone, which, as far as it goes, takes the form 

 of the horn itself; the teeth are in all twenty -two, 

 eight incisors in the lower jaw, and six grinders above 

 and below on each side ; the incisors form a regular 



