84 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BREEDS. 



impresses on the animal as a whole, extends -also to in- 

 dividual parts of the body. The sheep of South Africa 

 are, as all the world know, remarkable for the magni- 

 tude of the tail, which forms an immense fatty appen- 

 dage. The sheep of Persia, Tartary, and China, are 

 distinguished from all others by the tail forming a 

 double globe of fat. The North of Europe, and North 

 of Asia, are overrun by a breed in which the tail is al- 

 most wanting, while that of Southern Russia, India, 

 and Guinea, stands pre-eminent from the elongation of 

 the tail, and, in respect to that of the two last named 

 places, also of the legs. 



(77.) Influence of vegetation on form and disposi- 

 tion Vegetation influences, to a great extent, the form 



and disposition of the animal. Such changes may be 

 brought about either by the plenty, or scarceness, of 

 the herbage ; or by the nature of the country on which 

 that herbage is produced. Animals found on hilly- 

 countries are always widely different from those of the 

 plains. Their bodies are light, their legs long, and 

 their habits of that unquiet kind which renders them 

 hostile to any thing like restraint. It is for these rea- 

 sons, that when once a flock attaches itself to a range 

 of hills, and becomes suited to the means of subsistence, 

 it may preserve itself for ages apart from neighbouring 

 varieties, and present, after a long series of years, those 

 qualities in their native purity for which it was noted 

 by the earliest observers. The sheep of a level coun- 

 try are distinguished, on the contrary, by heavy bodies, 

 short legs, and easy tempers. They are, in fact, con- 

 structed on Dutch proportions, and are imbued, as a 

 natural consequence, with those imperturbable and 



