672 QUADRUPEDS. 



the last twenty years, been introduced into Galloway, and othef 

 parts of Scotland, under the denomination of mugg sheep. Their 

 flesh is rather coarse, and their wool intermixed with dry hair. It 

 is the hornless sheep of Pennant. 



Our oiher sheep are chiefly of the common horned breed. In 

 Wales, and through most of the sheep pastures in Scotland, they 

 are small and hardy. In delicacy of flavour and relish, their flesh 

 is much superior to that of the larger breed ; and even their wool, 

 where the nature of their pasture is not surh as to injure it greatly, 

 is said to be of the best quality. The common colour is white j 

 yet we sometimes observe a black, or a dark grey fleece, and a 

 smutted face : this is called the common sheep, as being more com- 

 mon than any other variety of the species, throughout all Europe. 

 Some ancient writers speak of a breed of sheep with golden teeth, 

 as belonging to Scotland. This appears, at first sight, incredible ; 

 but Mr Pennant has explained the wonder, by telling us, that he 

 saw at Athol house, in the year 1772, the jaws of an ox, contain- 

 ing teeth thickly incrusted with a gold-coloured pyrites. The same 

 thing might happen to sheep. 



The northern regions of Europe, particularly Gothland and Ice- 

 land, afford another variety of the sheep, distinguished by having 

 their heads furnished with three, four, or even five horns. Besides 

 this abundance of horns, the sheep of Iceland are remarkable for 

 straight, upright ears, and very small tails. In stormy weather, 

 the sheep of Iceland, by supeculiar instinct, retreat for shelter to 

 the caves and caverns, which are very numerous over the face of 

 that island ; but w hen the storm of snow comes on too suddenly 

 to afford them time to gain such a retreat, the .flock gather into a 

 heap, with their heads towards the middle, and inclined to the 

 ground ; a posture in which they will remain several days, without 

 perishing under the snow. Among the herbs on which they feed, 

 the inhabitants of Iceland remark that scurvy-grass contributes 

 most to fatten them. When the summer crop happens to fail, the 

 Icelanders are obliged to feed their sheep in winter with chopped 

 fish bones. Those sheep appear to afford milk in more abundance 

 than ours. Dr. Van Troil says, they give from two to six quarts 

 a. day. The fleece is not shorn from the sheep in that island as 

 with us : about the end of May, it loosens of itself, and is stripped 



off at once, like a skin. 



The Spanish sheep, remarkable for the fineness of their wool 



