Essay on Sheep, 45 



Under these circumstances more attention 

 would naturally be paid to the carcase, and to 

 the quantity than to the quality ot" the wool. 

 In size and weight of fleece the English sheep, 

 generally speaking, exceed that of any other 

 part of Europe. 



Sicily also possesses a breed of fine-woolled 

 sheep, which migrate like those of Spain, but 

 are inferior to them in the quality of the wool. 

 Those, with most of the sheep I have seen in 

 Italy, have pendent ears. From this circum- 

 stance I presume they have been longer domes- 

 ticated than those of Spain or other parts of 

 Europe. And as this country was originally 

 settled by the Grecians, it is highly probable 

 that the present race is from the stock of the 

 first colonists: for, extraordinary as it may 

 appear, notwithstanding the various changes 

 which that country has undergone, its agricul- 

 ture seems at the present to be what the poets 

 describe it to have been two thousand years 

 ago; and the implements of husbandry dug 

 up at Pompeia and Herculaneum are evidently 

 the models of those now in use in the vicinity 

 of Naples. I consider pendent ears as a proof 

 of very ancient domesticity, because I believe 

 all wild animals carry theirs erect; and most, 

 if not all of them, have the power of moving 



