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classes. It is easy to conceive how, in the course of centuries, so unnatural 

 a tail may have been evolved amongst a people otherwise indifferent to, 

 and perhaps ignorant of, the potent action of. continuous selection. Here 

 was part of a butcher's animal having a distinct commercial value of its own 

 well apparent to all ; and in picking out his rams the Arab or Syrian shep- 

 herd, as is the custom at the present time, paid almost exclusive attention 

 to tail development. Unconscious selection of the kind extending over 

 many centuries has, therefore, in all probability been responsible for the 

 abnormal and functionally useless tail of the fat-tail sheep. It should be 

 added, too, that this tail must form a sort of reserve upon which the animal 

 can draw for a time in days of stress and starvation. It seems to me that 

 this cult of the abnormally fat tail must have had the effect of breeding into 

 the breed an exaggerated tendency to lay on fat, quite as much as Bake- 

 well's artificial treatment of the Dishley Leicesters. If the tail be suppressed 

 in early life, I take it that the tendency to lay on fat to an abnormal degree 

 will still be retained, and in the absence of the tail will be deposited more 

 evenly over the body. Hence, I take it, the explanation of the success of 

 the Americans with these sheep in producing early fat lambs. 



The Tunisian Government appears within recent years to have made 

 strenuous efforts to displace the fat-tail sheep from the flocks of the Kegency. 

 To us their present aim will appear modest enough. They favor on the one 

 hand what are described as the " Algerian Thin-tail Sheep," which are said 

 to be superior to the ordinary Tunisian sheep both as producers of mutton 

 and of wool, although from our point of view still a very inferior breed of 

 sheep ; and on the other hand the Merino of La Oau, a barren stony plain 

 of the south of France. This sheep may be described as an inferior type 

 of short-wool Merino. The professional advisers of the Tunisian Govern- 

 ment argue, however, that coming as it does from very poor pasture land, 

 it is more likely to succeed in the hands of the Arabs than the better types 

 of Merinos that might otherwise be secured. The Government have under- 

 taken the importation of rams of these two breeds at their own charge, dis- 

 tributing them amongst likely applicants at bare cost price. It is stipulated, 

 however, that those securing Government rams must agree to exclude from 

 their flocks for a period of at least three years all fat-tail rams. Applicants 

 must also be in a position to show that they can afford suitable shelter for 

 their flocks, and adequate forage supplies to tide over the lean portion of the 

 year. 



I took the opportunity of bringing under the notice of the authorities 

 the South Australian Merino, which in my view would find in Tunisia pasture 

 conditions somewhat analogous to those obtaining here. In other directions, 

 however, conditions are perhaps not altogether similar. Tunisia is an open, 

 unfenced country, in which all flocks must constantly be under the eye of 

 the shepherd, one of whom generally tends 200 head. At night the flocks 



