Essay on Sheep. iS 



their blood with that of the Guinea sheep. I 

 have myself had occasion to make some expe- 

 riments in those sheep, three of which were 

 sent me by my worthy friend Mr. Kerby, from 

 the island of Antigua. I had these several 

 years without observing that any sensible change 

 was produced by exposure to the air during our 

 cold winters, except that, like the Argali, they 

 acquired, the first winter, a coat of very short 

 and fine wool below their hair, which fell off*, 

 together with the hair, as the summer heats came 

 on, when they acquired a new coat of hair 

 only; and, as winter approached, this was again 

 thickened by an under stratum of very fine 

 short wool. These sheep are then the Argali, 

 but moderately degenerated. Indeed, it would 

 appear a little extraordinary, if the climate that 

 converts the hair of man into wool, should, by 

 some retrograde movement, change the wool 

 of sheep into hair. The next in order, in 

 point of degeneracy from the original stock, 

 is the sheep of Iceland.* Like the Argali, 

 they have two coats; one of extremely coarse 

 hair, which hardly merits the name of wool, 

 and another beneath it of a softer and finer 

 quality, but so mixed as to make it impossible 



* Ovis Aries Polycerata. Lin. 



