14 Domesticated Animals. 



date into Egypt and Western Asia, whence it has gradually spread 

 into various parts of Southern Europe, such as Hungary, Italy, and 

 Spain. Of late years Domesticated Buffaloes have been introduced 

 into Australia. There is, however, a Pleistocene European race of 

 the species from which it is possible that some of the domesticated 

 stocks may have been derived. In the North Hall are shown minia- 

 ture models of a male and a female of the domesticated breed, modelled 

 from specimens bred in Hungary, and purchased in 1902. 



_ f f H '^^^ origin of Domesticated Sheep, of which the 



„ ordinary European breeds constitute the species 



P' Ovh arm, is not definitely known. Most 



European breeds differ from wild species in being clothed with wool 

 instead of hair ; the tail being also much longer than in any of the 

 latter except the Barbary Sheep (0. lerviii), in which the horns are 

 of a peculiar type. If, as is probable, the long tail be an acquired 

 character, the wild Mouflons or Urials may represent the ancestral 

 stock. A small Sheep with Goat-like horns was domesticated by the 

 Prehistoric Swiss lake-dwellers ; and the earliest Egyptian paintings 

 show a domesticated breed of the Barbary Sheep, replaced in those of 

 later date by one with Mouflon-likc horns. 



The horns are very variable, being sometimes absent in one or 

 both sexes, and in other cases increased to four or more, while in 

 one Himalayan breed they coalesce. In the Wallachiun Sheep they 

 assume a more or less upright, corkscrew-like form. 



In certain breeds the tail is flattened and the coat hairy, although 

 in the lambs the latter is woolly and affords " Astrachan." In South- 

 western Asia and South Africa the tails of these Sheep are long and 

 heavy, but in the black-headed breed of Persia, Central Asia, 

 Arabia, and North Africa, they are short and rudimentary. The 

 Shiluk Sheep of the Upper Nile have long fat tails and brown hairy 

 coats. 



Among the round-tailed breeds, the brown and white Fezzan 

 Sheep have hairy coats. The small Shetland breed also shows 

 some hair mingled with the wool ; and in the old small Scotch breed, 

 now nearly extinct, the soft short wool felts badly. In the island of 

 Soa, belonging to the St. Kilda group, is found a small breed of 

 brown-wooUed Sheep believed to have been introduced by the 

 Vikings. Four-horned Sheep are found from Iceland to China. 

 There are two breeds of Welsh Sheep, one of which is found in the 

 mountains, and has horns in both sexes, and hair mixed with the 

 wool ; while the other occurs in the valleys, and is hornless, with 



