460 MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



ing to seven British breeds Scotch Blackface, Border 

 Leicester, Romney Marsh, Herdwick, Cotswold, Dart- 

 moor, and Cheviot. The tup worked well and got forty 

 lambs all without exception black and curly, though the 

 curls differed in degree of tightness. The lambs showed 

 pronounced Karakul characteristics, including, with one 

 exception, drooping ears and a rudimentary fatty enlarge- 

 ment near the base of a long tail. In two cases only the 

 tail had a white tip, which was correlated with a white 

 spot on the forehead. 



The lustrous, tightly-curled fur, which the best of 

 Dr. Young's rams produced in the first generation, did 

 not appear; but the ewe lambs, with a single exception, 

 have been kept. Within four or five generations of sheep 

 it should be possible to produce a high-grade Karakul- 

 Duzbai even superior to the original pure breed, and to 

 develop rams, made " pure by crossing " by the use of 

 pure-bred sires, that would breed true to type and be of 

 even higher quality and of greater value than the sheep 

 which can be bought in the market at present. 



CONCLUSION. 



Unqualified success in fur breeding, although now 

 believed to be certain, is coming more slowly than might 

 be anticipated. The prospects of establishing a new meat 

 industry in this country are, however, most encouraging. 

 The carcasses of the ram lambs, which weigh from 8 Ib. 

 to 10 Ib. each when 75 to 80 hours old, have proved to 

 be a rare delicacy, which would doubtless soon become 

 appreciated. There is no reason why Karakul " baby- 

 lamb " should not be received with the favour attending 

 "baby-beef," and command the remunerative price of 

 35. per Ib., thus providing a solid basis on which a British 

 Karakul lamb-fur industry might be reared. 



The interest of the scientific world is so new in con- 

 nection with this industry, and there is such a wide gap 

 between the fur-breeder in Asia and the fur merchant 

 and fur wearer in Europe and America, that much uncer- 

 tainty' prevails as to the origin and history of the best 

 fur-bearingf sheep and the most '-o^'-e.fiil way to con- 



