EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 71 



reason, from its parents by a disproportionately long body and short 

 bandy legs, wheiice it was unable to emulate its relatives iii tlieir seal 

 ing- the neighbors 7 fences and luxuriating in forbidden pastures. The 

 neighboring farmers recognizing this excellent characteristic of the ne\\ 

 sheep, advised Mr. Wright to kill his old ram and reserve the younger 

 one for breeding, which advice was followed. The first season, two 

 lambs only were yeaned in his likeness. In the following years, a num- 

 ber more, distinguished by the same peculiarities. Hence proceeded a 

 strongly marked variety in this species of animals, before unknown in 

 the world. It was called by the name of the Otter breed. This name was 

 given from a real or imaginary resemblance to that animal, in the short- 

 ness of the legs and length of the back, supposed by some to have been 

 caused by an unnatural intercourse; by others, perhaps as fancifully, 

 from fright during gestation. It is only certain that otters were then 

 sometimes seen on the banks of this river. They have since disappeared. 

 Dr. Shattuck, who in 1811 dissected one of these sheep for the pur- 

 pose of ascertaining the properties and qualities which distinguished 

 them from the common kind, says that the sheep weighed, just before it 

 was killed. 45 pounds. The most obvious difference in its skeleton 

 from the skeleton of the common sheep, so far as a superficial observa- 

 tion extended, consisted in the greater looseness of the articulations, 

 the diminished size of the bones ; but more especially in the crookedness 

 of its forelegs, which caused them to appear like elbows. Dr. Shattuck 

 called them ancon, from the Greek word which signifies elbows. On 

 dissecting the sheep he could not forbear noticing the comparatively 

 flabby condition of the subscapularic muscles, which would partially 

 account for the great feebleness of the animal and its consequent 

 quietude in pasture. The inequality of form seemed to be confirmed 

 in the blood. Experiments in crossing changed the strain, or, to allow 

 the expression, amalgamated the qualities of those of other breeds, so 

 as to produce a mixed or mongrel race in too few instances to form an 

 exception to the theory. Col. David Humphreys, of Connecticut, who 

 reported this singular animal to the Philosophical Society of England, 

 said that when both parents were of the Otter or Ancon breed, the 

 descendants inherited their peculiar appearance and proportions of 

 form, and he had heard of but one questionable case of a contrary 

 nature. The small number of cases where the young were said to par- 

 take in part, but not altogether, the characteristics of their breed, 

 would not invalidate the general conclusions established on experience 

 in breeding from a male and female of distinct kind. When an Ancon 

 ewe was impregnated by a common ram, the increase resembled wholly 

 either the ewe or the ram. The increase of a common ewe, impregnated 

 by an Ancon ram, followed entirely the one or the other, without blend- 

 ing any of the distinguishing and essential peculiarities of both. The 

 most obvious difference between the young of this and other breeds 

 consisted in the shortness of the legs of the former ; which, combined 



