88 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE BREEDS. 



to be the most profitable kind on farms where the best 

 tillage crops are combined with the fattening of live- 

 stock, though Marshall supposes they will only be 

 reckoned profitable so long as other breeds of long- 

 wooUed sheep remain with thin chines, and loose mut- 

 ton ; or, in other words, that there are plenty of kinds 

 which would prove equal, if not superior, to the pre- 

 sent, if they only received the same studied attention. 



(79.) Varied nature of the food of Sheep. — Sheep 

 Mill take, sometimes from choice, sometimes from ne- 

 cessity, to food of a directly opposite nature to what 

 they have been used. ** The mutton," says the Rev. 

 George Low, writing of Orkney, *' is here in general 

 but ordinary, owing to the sheep feeding much on sea- 

 ware, to procure which these creatures show a wonder- 

 ful sagacity, for no sooner has the tide of ebb begun to 

 run, but they, though at a great distance, immediately 

 betake themselves full speed, one and all, to the shore, 

 where they continue till it begins to flow." The sheep 

 of Iceland are content during severe winters to feed, 

 and be preserved, on messes of chopped fish-bones, 

 being all that the ingenuity of their masters can pro- 

 vide in the way of a precarious sustenance. During 

 the long continuance of snow-storms, when the herbage 

 is beyond the reach of their utmost efforts, sheep are 

 known to devour the wool on each other's backs, and, 

 in some instances to acquire a relish for this unnatural 

 food, which adheres to them through life. This, though 

 on first thoughts hardly credible, is scarcely more won- 

 derful than the partiality which cows display, when 

 nstigated by the depraved appetites created by preg- 

 nancy, for blankets, and any similar domestic articles 



