The Lonks. 353 



Mr. Peel's first herd was swept off at the end of five 

 years by murrain, in 1856. The disease raged without 

 intermission from the October of that year up to the 

 April of the next, and the Knowlmere homesteads 

 became one great lazar-house. A common cow, which 

 was bought in for milk, was supposed to have spread 



the fells from beyond Bowland Forest to Lancaster there are Blackface 

 flocks, but some of the owners have lost on the wool, and have accord- 

 ingly fallen back on the old sort. The Falkirk Blackface ewe drafts 

 still come over Foulscales and Browsholme on their way from the 

 trysts, and sometimes wait at Birket Moor to gather a little bloom 

 before they proceed to Clitheroe Fair. Lonks in their turn have gone 

 as far as Sutherlandshire, and the Grampian ranges between Perthshire 

 and Argyllshire, and in some instances to Northumberland as a wool 

 cross. The cast ewes are generally sold at Moiser Fair near Keighley, 

 and four to five thousand of them are dispersed round the neighbour- 

 hood among the small farmers, who take one crop of lambs from them 

 by a Leicester tup. This cross knocks out the horn in the gimmers, 

 and makes capital hoggs, which feed to i61bs. a quarter at twenty 

 months on good lowland pasture, without any artificial food. Cots- 

 wolds and Southdowns have also "hit" pretty well with them, but they 

 have been but seldom tried. 



Some maintain that the pure Lonk should be copper-coloured on the 

 nose, and have the face and legs of the same hue ; but fashion differs 

 from them on this point. A white face is generally eschewed as soft, 

 and any approach to a brindle shade as indicative of cross-breeding. 

 The blending of pure black and white is now generally endorsed in the 

 show-ring, more especially if the poll is white, and the white streaks 

 fall over each cheek. Lightness in the fore-quarter is a characteristic of 

 the Lonk, and, as in the Ayrshire cow, betokens good milking. Their 

 scrags are rather light, and their legs long, and the loin too often lacks 

 strength. The lambs shoot their horns with the new year, and the 

 wethers never go beyond one curl. Breeders make much of the horn, 

 and consider its strength a great proof of constitution. It ought to be 

 self-coloured and finer than that of the blackface ; but it should come 

 out low from the head, and with the same fine, gentle curl. 



For cunning the Lonks are unrivalled. They are, in fact, always 

 working for themselves, with a zeal and sagacity which makes them 

 very bad neighbours. Small farmers buy the wethers from the Moor 

 by twenty or thirty at a time, and if there be one better acre than 

 another in a parish, be it garden or churchyard, the strangers very soon 

 make themselves tenants at will. Hence it is often necessary to 

 "hopple" them in spring time. On the hills they run up walls like a 

 cat, when they cannot take them "off and on ;" but a wire fence five 

 feet high is too much for their philosophy. A curious anecdote is told 

 about one which wanted to get back from the Ings to the hill. A canal 



A A 



