444 MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



sides put together, the surplus salt being shaken out in 

 the morning and the skins exposed to dry; and (3) in 

 Bokhara, pickling them in coarse barley flour by a patent 

 process in high favour with certain pickling firms, who 

 guard their secret carefully. 



In Asia " Persian Lamb " skins are never dyed, and 

 those most directly descended from the fountain head of 

 blackness retain their colour without fading into brown 

 when exposed to the sun, as the black wools of English 

 and Australian sheep are liable to do. In Europe and 

 America all black lamb-skins are dyed black to make 

 certain that the colour will not fade and also to intensify 

 the natural lustre. No mode of dyeing will, however, 

 give lustre to a wool which is not by nature lustrous. 

 It is this inexplicable quality of lustre which has brought 

 lamb-fur into fashion, and is the infallible guarantee that 

 public appreciation is of a permanent kind. 



Skins with tight grey curls are very rare and bring 

 from 2 2s. to 5 53. each; they are classed as Shiraz. 

 Grey Crimean (" Krimmer ") skins are used for the re- 

 quirements of the private soldier, and in the other parts 

 of the world for ordinary fur purposes. The curly 

 locks are somewhat large and more open than those of 

 " Persian Lamb," although there is great variation in 

 this particular, due to the amount of fine-wool blood 

 present in the producing sheep. The wool of Grey 

 Crimean sheep is uniformly grey and its origin can only 

 be conjectured. The sheep have been in the Crimea for 

 half a century, and are supposed to have come from 

 Bokhara via the Caucasus. 



Not infrequently may be seen Karakul fur in which 

 grey hair is intermixed. Local fur dealers call it grey 

 " Shiraz. " Young thinks this is a remnant of the grey 

 Danadar. Of late years this fur has been worn as caps 

 quite extensively by rich noblemen of Moscow and 

 Petrograd. Grey lamb-skins when dyed do not develop 

 the lustre or take the dye so satisfactorily as black skins 

 of similar quality, though the dark brown skins do. 



Kalmucks and Kirghiz in Astrakhan raise the huge 

 fawn fat-rumps and cross them to all grades of Bokharan 

 fur sheep, and produce the so-c"*,ied " Astrakhan " fur 



