664 



SHEEP. 



or wool, which is never found in that of the goats, be 

 the staple what it may. No fabric made of wool has 

 nearly the same durability as the shawls that are 

 made of the fine under-covering of the goat of the 

 Himalaya, formerly alluded to ; and, on the other 

 hand, the covering of the goat cannot be felted or 

 wetted in the same way that wool can. In conse- 

 quence of this, the covering of the goats, how- 

 ever long and shaggy it may be, never gets matted, 

 while the wool of the sheep always does, and does so 

 the more the liner it is in the staple. It is this mat- 

 ting which renders the covering of the sheep so lia- 

 ble to injury by long exposure to the rain. It holds 

 out for a considerable time no doubt, and the finer 

 that it is it holds out the longer ; but then, when a 

 fleece of this kind is once wet through, it takes a 

 very long time in drying, and the health ot the animal 

 is injured by the cold produced by the evaporation of 

 so much moisture as there is in the fleece. We find 

 that there is, in the nature of the animals, a tendency 

 to correct this in so far. If the fine-woolled sheep, 

 whose proper pasture is the dry plains where there 

 are not many rain-storms during the summer, are 

 taken to the hills where the atmosphere is habitually 

 cold and dripping, they in time become comparatively 

 rough in the coat, which is longer in the fibre, but 

 much less matted together. On the other hand, if 

 they are taken to very hot countries the fleece 

 changes in time to thin and coarse hair, as is the case 

 with the sheep in India. All the circumstances, in- 

 deed, point out the locality proper for the sheep, as 

 being that which is dry, and neither too cold nor too 

 warm. Oxen, on the other hand, thrive best where 

 the atmosphere is rather moist, because they have a 

 more luxuriant and tender pasture. Goats are more 

 proof aaainst all weathers than either oxen or slveep ; 

 and their sure-footedness enables them to reach the 

 patches of herbage in places which are quite inac- 

 cessible to both the others. We shall, however, have 

 occasion to make a remark or two .upon this part of 

 the subject when we come to notice the leading vari- 

 eties of cultivated sheep ; and, therefore, we now 

 proceed to a mere notice of the wild ones, in which 

 we shall take them as they stand in the system, 

 without admitting or denying that they are dif- 

 ferent species. In doing this we shall take them 

 in their geographical distribution, without consider- 

 ing any of them as more typical of the genus than 

 another. 



THE MOUFLON. This one is called the Corsican 

 sheep and the Sardinian sheep, because it is particu- 

 larly numerous in the mountainous parts of those 

 islands, though not confined to them. It is also called 

 the wild sheep, and supposed to be the parent stock 

 of all the tame breeds of Europe, though of this there 

 is of course no conclusive evidence either way. This 

 species is rather larger ; that is, it is a larger-boned 

 animal than tn average of the cultivated sheep. 

 The horns are triangular ; that is, they present three 

 faces ; the first posterior and internal, the second infe- 

 rior and anterior, and the third superior and anterior. 

 The posterior face is smooth, or without ridges, and 

 larger than either of the others, and it is slightly con- 

 vex in the first part of its length, but concave in the 

 remaining part. The other two faces are flat for the 

 greater part of their length, but concave for a little 

 space toward the point of the horn. The ridge which 

 separates the two faces of the horn is very prominent, 

 and almost what may be called a cutting edge. The 



first curvature is always outwards and inwards, and 

 backwards and forwards. These horns, though trian- 

 gular in the basal part, are flattened into a sort of 

 laminae or blades toward the points. They are very 

 broad at their bases, and occupy so much of the upper 

 part of the head that they are separated by a space of 

 only about a quarter of an inch, and in some instances 

 their bases meet without any interval. Their average, 

 divergence from each other at the base is about a 

 right angle ; but it is not quite constant, being some- 

 times ten degrees more, and at other times ten degrees 

 less. These horns are ridged and annulated, like 

 those of the cultivated sheep, but the annuli are gene- 

 rally closer together, and on the basal part of the 

 horn they are at irregular distances. 



The mouflon is covered with two sorts of hair, one 

 woolly, and very fine and soft to the touch, and 

 arranged into curled locks like the wool of the com- 

 mon sheep, and of a grey colour. The other kind is 

 straight and bristly ; and from its length it is the only 

 part of the covering which is visible to the eye, and 

 has to be lifted up or aside before the woolly part is 

 seen. The colour therefore depends on this larger 

 and more bristly part of the covering ; and, as it is 

 variously coloured, the apparent colours of the indi- 

 viduals vary along with it. In some cases it is yel- 

 low, in others black, and in others again it is variously 

 annulated of these two colours. These differently- 

 coloured hairs are generally found on the same indi- 

 vidual, but they vary in their proportions j so that, 

 taken on the whole, different individuals of the same 

 flock appear to be differently coloured, the yellow 

 predominating in some instances, the black in others, 

 and others again having every shade that can be pro- 

 duced by a mixture of the two. These colours are 

 not constant, even in the same individual, but change 

 with age and with the season. In winter the colour 

 is more inclining to brown than at other times, and 

 the young are of a clearer and brighter tint than the 

 old. Some individuals are also nearly or altogether 

 white, and others are black. They have very often 

 a black streak along the dorsal line, and not unfre- 

 quently another, black or blackish, on the flanks, sepa- 

 rating the upper parts from the under ; the latter are 

 white, as are also the insides of the legs, the buttocks, 

 a spot under each eye, the middle of the face, and 

 the insides of the ears. The tail is very short, and 

 the sides of it are white. The hoofs and horns are of 

 a yellowish grey, and the latter, measured from the 

 base along the curvature, are nearly two feet in length. 

 The tongue and the inside of the mouth and nostrils 

 are black. The authorities are not quite agreed about 

 the horns of the females: some describe them as hav- 

 ing no horns, and others as having them, only smaller 

 than those of the males. The fact of the case seems 

 to be that the females have sometimes horns and 

 sometimes not ; but the presence of these appendages 

 seems to be the exception, and the absence of them 

 the rule. 



The mouflon has been known from the remotest 

 antiquity, and it is probable that, in former times, it 

 was common in places where it is not now to be 

 found. At that time it was sometimes called the 

 Ophion, or "glider," probably from the fleetness of its 

 motions ; and Strabo and Pliny describe it pretty 

 accurately as the Musmon. Pliny mentions it as 

 being found in the mountains of Spain, and in those 

 of Sardinia, Corsica, and some other of the islands of 

 the Mediterranean, the places where it U still to be 



