THE ANCON OR OTTER SHEEP. 115 



tho control of the whole thhig within ourselves. It seems to be 

 an axiom, and. especially since this wonderful " Novum Org-a- 

 nuin'' of Darwin, — this doctrine of the selection of species, — 

 that we can, by a proper selection, produce just such results as 

 we desire. There is no more noticeable instance of this than 

 what took place in Massachusetts, on Charles River, in 1791, in 

 relation to the"Ancon" or "Otter" sheep. We had, before 

 that time, no good wool-bearing sheep. Our sheep were a short- 

 bodied and long-legged animal ; but that year one of the ewes of 

 Mr. Soth Wright, who had a flock of fifteen ewes and a ram of 

 the ordinary kind, presented him with a male lamb differing, 

 for no assignable reason, from its parents by a proportionately 

 long body and short, bandy legs. He was advised, by some man 

 who had a little wit about him, to put that ram to his ewes, 

 which he did, and the result was, that very soon he had a flock 

 of short, crooked-legged sheep that couldn't jump fences, and 

 that were the admiration of the country. That breed of ani- 

 mals remained here until the introduction of the Spanish merino, 

 which was a so much better sheep, so far as the wool was con- 

 cerned, that at last it died out. That shows tlie great power 

 we have in the selection of our animals ; and it shows that we 

 have within ourselves, if we study this subject, the power of 

 producing animals of just such type as we want. 



But one great difficulty that has embarrassed most of us arises 

 from a question which was one of the principal questions ad- 

 verted to by the learned Professor ; that is, the various influ- 

 ences of the male and the female. It has heretofore been laid 

 down as an axiom, that the male always gave the locomotive or 

 external parts of the system, and that the female gave almost 

 entirely the vital organization. This has led us into a great 

 many errors. The farmers of this State and elsewhere have 

 been in the habit of selecting good bulls, but have not selected 

 the proper females, relying entirely upon the male, so that we 

 have not produced just such results as we desired. Now, my 

 experience, and I apprehend the experience of a great many 

 other breeders, is, that that rule is not the correct one ; and I 

 apprehend, also, that an examination of the authorities on that 

 subject will show, as the Professor has shown us, that that is not 

 the correct rule. So far as the Arab horse is concerned, an 

 examination was entered into by certain French savans several 



