5<D SHEEP ! BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



other districts. The frame inclines to increase in size, the 

 face often becomes darker, and the fleece heavier, and looser. 

 Breeders of such transplanted flocks find it necessary to 

 return to Sussex to buy rams, in order to prevent deteriora- 

 tion, or alteration, of type, and this becomes a source of profit 

 to those who breed them upon their native soil. 



Taking the last thirty years as a period for comparison, 

 the disposition has evidently been to cultivate a lighter colour 

 of face than formerly, many of the exhibits at our shows now 

 being exceedingly light, and scarcely of the colour of the 

 fallow deer which was Mr. Ellman's ideal as to the colour 

 of the head of a Southdown. The head is small, and the 

 features refined to delicacy, and in some case inclined to be 

 dish faced. The carcase is faultless, being beautifully drawn, 

 oval on the top, from set-on of the neck to the tail, thoroughly 

 filled up behind the shoulders, and square and massive from 

 chest to twist. 



The older Ellman described the head as small and horn- 

 less ; the face speckled or grey ; the lips thin, and the space 

 between the eyes and the nose narrow, the forehead well 

 covered with wool between and around the ears. The head, 

 according to the younger Ellman, is deer-like, but not too full 

 at the orbit or eye-cap, as such bony protuberances are found 

 dangerous in lambing ewes. The ears of the Southdown are, 

 comparatively, short and rounded, and carried more erect 

 than in the Hampshire Down. This gives an appearance of 

 greater narrowness between the ears. The chap, or under 

 jaw, is fine and fleshless, assisting to produce the deer-like 

 appearancce already mentioned ; and the eye is full and 

 placid, giving the same impression. The appearance of the 

 Southdowns is characteristic and unmistakable. Their fineness, 

 smallness, and high-bred character contrast with those more 

 robust races, the Hampshire, Shropshire, and Oxford, and 

 it is this contrast perhaps which gives the idea of breeding 

 and fineness which strikes an observer in passing a number of 

 classes of sheep in review. 



