SHELL-FISH SHEPHERDIA. 



679 



" twit" his inconsiderate and narrow-minded country 

 with the loss of such a man as Wilson, who became 

 great in the American wilderness, despite the utmost 

 rudeness of nature and of man. There has been, 

 of late years, no lack of great squires and small 

 knights perambulating different parts of Scotland, 

 lor the avowed purpose of examining nature there, 

 and returning and getting laudation from coteries of 

 au'ed persons for having discovered nothing, and 

 blessing their own wits upon the occasion, because 

 the burthen thereof had not weighed them down, and 

 made the maw of the hooded crow their monument. 

 But if Scotland had had Alexander Wilson to peram- 

 bulate the Highlands and Isles, and tell the tale of 

 nature there, then Scotland would have been rich in 

 one volume of her own natural history ; but Wilson 

 nourished and died in exile, and thus far forth Scot- 

 land is, and must remain a beggar. Such at least 

 is the opinion of the autiior of this article. 



There is much more that we could say on the sub- 

 ject of fhe mountain sheep, which we have contem- 

 plated so often and with so much pleasure in the 

 very wildest of their haunts; but our measure of space 

 is full to overflowing. We must, however, mention 

 that there is no possibility of tracing the genuine 

 black-faced sheep from any foreign race in Europe 

 or in any other part of the world ; and thus we must 

 look upon them as the aboriginal sheep of the wild 

 parts of the British islands, and perhaps as the only 

 breed that can be regarded as native. For this rea- 

 son, as well as for the other reasons that have been 

 already hinted at, they will merit attention as to the 

 means by which they could be improved, not by 

 nossing and admixture with other breeds, but in 

 themselves as a race. On some of the heights of 

 Cumberland there is a race nearly allied to this ; the 

 origin of which is unknown. These sheep have shorter 

 and finer wool than the common heath sheep, and 

 their faces are brownish or,bluish, or mottled w ith these 

 colours rather than black ; but they are a very hardy 

 and valuable race for elevated pastures. They have 

 lici.n farmed out to the shepherds for a long time; 

 and, as is said, it is on account of this that they 

 are called Floodwick sheep. 



In some of the eastern parts of the Grampians, 

 especially on the hills of fhe county of Mearns, and 

 part of Aberdeen, there is another race of dark-faced 

 sheep, which appear to have been imported from the 

 north of Germany or from Norway, and which differ 

 in some respects from the mountain sheep which we 

 have mentioned as probably being indigenous. These 

 are, in some places at least, called " broukie-faced]" 

 -sheep, in distinction from the real mountaineers, 

 which are called "morifaced" eheep. The last of 

 these is expressive of the black colour, and the other 

 implies that it is mixed or clouded like the colour of 

 a badger. These mountain, or rather hill sheep, 

 unquestionably of continental origin, though not to 

 be confounded with the mountain breed, which are 

 more decidedly from Norway, appear to have been 

 introduced only into those parts of the uplands of the 

 north, which were colonised from the east, and not 

 by Celts. Their wool is finer than that of the black- 

 faced sheep ; and the fleeces are often of nearly the 

 same colour as the faces of the sheep, the dark parts 

 of which arc brownish in some, and inclining to grey 

 in others. When stockings, knitted upon hand-nee- 

 dles formed great part of the occupation of the females 

 on that side of Scotland, the coloured wools of the 



sheep under consideration were in much request ; and 

 they were very durable, and by no means unhandsome 

 in the colour. The sheep now mentioned are some- 

 times termed the dun-faced breed ; and they ap- 

 proach a little in character to those of the western and 

 northern isles, though they are not exactly the same. 



The native sheep of the western isles are a very 

 small but very hardy race. They have the face and 

 the legs white or brownish yellow, but the fleece 

 varies much both in colour and in staple. Upon the 

 richer and more grassy isles it is very soft and fine ; but 

 on the higher and exposed places where the pasture 

 is poor, it is much coarser in the staple. The wool 

 is in very small quantity; and the entire carcass does 

 not weigh more than half as much as one hind-quarter of 

 the midland sheep of England. In those parts it is on\y 

 in particular situations that the sheep get fat ; but 

 there is either something very delicious in the flavour 

 of their flesh, or the air of the isles is a most excel- 

 lent sauce, for we never ate mutton with so much 

 zest as we have done in the Hebrides, where, at the 

 time to which we allude, an entire sheep, wool, skin, 

 and all, could be purchased, even by a visitor, for four 

 shillings, and in some places for three. These islands 

 are eminently worthy the attention of lovers of na- 

 ture ; and those who resort to them for pleasure 

 should catch their own fish, and buy their own mutton 

 in the live carcass. 



There is some uncertainty in the history of the 

 Shetland sheep. The origina.1 breed were very small 

 and remarkable for the extreme fineness of their 

 wool ; but in so remote a situation, and one which is 

 so much at the mercy of the contingent winters of 

 the North Sea, they are now rarely to be met 

 with. The other breed in these islands which is 

 understood to be a more recent importation, though 

 whence is not very clearly ascertained, are thus 

 described : " They have three [different successions 

 of wool yearly, two of which resemble long hair more 

 than wool, and are termed by the country people 

 fors and scudda. When the wool begins to loosen at 

 the roots, which generally happens in the month of 

 February, the hairs or scudda begin to spring up ; 

 and when the wool is carefully plucked off, the tough 

 hairs continue fast until the new wool grows up about 

 a quarter of an inch in length, then they gradually 

 wear off; and when the new fleece has acquired 

 about two months' growth, the rough hairs, termed 

 fors, spring up and keep root, until the proper season 

 for pulling it arrives, when it is plucked off" along 

 with the wool, and separated from it at dressing the 

 fleece, by an operation called forsing. The scudda 

 remains upon the skin of the animal, as if it were a 

 thick coat, a fence against the inclemency of the 

 seasons, which provident Nature hasl'urnished for sup- 

 ply ing the want of the fleece." So say the authorities; 

 but we cannot say there is much regard to Nature, 

 however provident it may be, in their tearing the wool 

 off the living sheep, and patches of the skin along 

 with it. 



SHELL-FISH. The ordinary name given to 

 various crustaceous animals, such as the lobster, crab, 

 scalv lobster, prawn, &c. 



SHEPHERDIA (Nuttal). A genus of North 

 American deciduous trees bearing dioecious flowers, 

 and belonging to the natural order Elfeagitica;. This 

 genus was called a Hippophac by Linnaeus. The 

 species are propagated by stickers, layers, or by 

 ripened cuttings under a hand-glass. 



