OF THli HUMAN SPECIES. 439 



said to be lost, and a degenerated being, running into end- 

 less varieties, is substituted in its place. The wild original 

 of the sheep, is even yet uncertain. Buffon conceived that 

 he discovered it in the mouflon or argali (ovis ammon) : 

 and Pallas, who had an opportunity of studying the latter 

 animal, adds the weight of his highly respectable authority 

 to the opinion of the French naturalist. Yet Blumenbach 

 regards the argali as a distinct species. Should we allow 

 the latter to be the parent of our sheep, and consequently 

 admit that the differences are explicable by degeneration, 

 no difficulty can any longer exist about the unity of the hu- 

 man species. An incomplete horn of the argali, in the 

 Academical Museum at Gottingen, weighs nine pounds *. 



" Let us compare,'' says Buffon, " our pitiful sheep with 

 the mouflon, from which they derived their origin. The 

 mouflon is a large animal. He is fleet as a stag, armed 

 with horns and thick hoofs, covered with coarse hair, and 

 dreads neither the inclemency of the sky nor the voracity of 

 the wolf. He not only escapes from his enemies by the 

 swiftness of his course, and scaling, with truly wonderful 

 leaps, the most frightful precipices ; but he resists them by 

 the strength of his body and the solidity of the arms with 

 which his head and feet are fortified. How different from 

 our sheep, who subsist with difficulty in flocks, who are 

 unable to defend themselves by their numbers, who cannot 

 endure the cold of our winters without shelter, and who 

 would all perish if man withdrew his protection 1 So com- 

 pletely are the frame and capabilities of this animal degraded 

 by his association with us, that it is no longer able to subsist 

 in a wild state, if turned loose, as the goat, pig, and cattle 

 are. In the warm climates of Asia and Africa, the mouflon, 

 who is the common parent of all the races of this species, 

 appears to be less degenerated than in any otlier region. 

 Though reduced to a domestic state, he has preserved his 

 stature and his hair; but the size of his horns is diminished. 

 Of all domestic sheep, those of Senegal and India are the 



* Uli yuy<DAi u, Ilandbiuliihr Nalurgeschichte, p. 1 1 1, note. 



