THE FLOCKS AND HERDS ll? 



able numbers or made the basis of extensive industries. The 

 reason for this seems to be that these animals cannot readily 

 be kept in flocks in the manner of sheep. They are only 

 partly gregarious, and tend to stray from the owner's keeping. 

 There seems reason also to believe that they cannot easily 

 be made to vary in other characteristics except their hairy 

 covering at the will of the breeder, and so varieties cannot be 

 formed, as is the case with sheep, to suit each peculiarity of 

 soil and climate. Thus in Europe, where it would be easy to 

 name a score of distinct breeds of sheep, each peculiarly well 

 suited to the conditions of the country where it had been 

 developed, the goats are singularly alike. The original stock 

 of these creatures appears to have been adapted to feeding 

 on the scant herbage which develops in rocky and moun- 

 tainous countries. They do not seem able to make the perfect 

 use of the resources of a pasture which sheep do. These 

 inherited peculiarities in feeding enable them to pick up a 

 subsistence where they may range over a considerable ter- 

 ritory, even where it seems to afford no forms of food for the 

 hungriest animal. Thus in that part of the city of New York 

 known as " Shanty town," goats may be seen in fairly good 

 condition, although the sole source of food, besides a few 

 stray weeds, appears to be the paste of the paper advertise- 

 ments which they pick from the rocks and fences. 



Although goats appear to be characterized by invariable 

 bodies, our sheep are, in physical characteristics, among the 

 most flexible of our domesticated animals. They may by 

 selection readily and rapidly be made to vary as regards the 

 character of their wool, the size and proportion of their 

 muscles, and the quantity and placing of the fat. In all these 

 features they may be fairly blown to and fro by the wind of 



