FOUR-HORNED SHEEP 283 



sheep may be traced eastwards across the northern districts 

 of Continental Europe and Asia into China, where they 

 appear to be comparatively numerous. Among the flocks of 

 the nomad Tatars, the presence of four horns is associated 

 with an enlargement of the base of the tail, owing to the 

 deposition in that region of a large amount of fat. Although 

 such a difference might be produced by crossing Icelandic 

 four-horned sheep with the two-horned fat-tailed breed, 

 it quite possibly indicates an altogether distinct breed. 

 Moreover, Brian Hodgson, a late Anglo-Indian naturalist, 

 in a paper on the tame sheep and goats of the Sub- 

 Himalayas and Tibet, published in vol. xvi. of the Journal 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1847), stated that the 

 Hunia sheep of the Himalayas, which are white with black 

 faces, occasionally develop four or more horns. Again, 

 Darwin, in his "Animals under Domestication," mentions 

 that merino sheep when exported to Chili display the same 

 tendency. 



A breed of black and white sheep, originally natives of 

 Zululand and other parts of South Africa, not unfrequently 

 develop an additional pair of horns which are quite different 

 in shape from those of the Icelandic breed, as indeed are 

 both pairs in colour, which is black. A flock of this breed 

 is kept by the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. 



In most, if not in all cases, the two horns on each side 

 of the head in these sheep are perfectly distinct and separate 

 from one another at the base ; but this does not prove that 

 they may not in the first instance have originated by a 

 splitting or division of the young horns of the normal pair. 



In this connection it is very noteworthy that the antlers of 

 deer are occasionally bifurcate for a portion or the whole of 

 their length on one side of the head, although there does not 

 seem to be an instance on record where such a feature occurs 



