400 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



carried on against the Moorish coast by order of Ximenes, except an attempt that 

 same year by Don Diego Vera on the town of Algiers, defended by the famous 

 Barbarossa, who repulsed the Spanish army with considerable slaughter. The 

 Cardinal died the following year. 



At this day, abundance of sheep are carried to Spain and other parts of Europe 

 from Barbary ; but among them we find no traces of the Merino breed. One of 

 the rams of Barbary I have seen. He was a large, well-made, hornless animal, 

 entirely covered, not with wool, but with strong, short hair, like a smooth New- 

 foundland dog, or rather like a deer, and of the deepest black. Wool, also, is 

 every year purchased by England from. Barbary, and other parts of Africa : but 

 none of it is, comparatively, fine. 



From all these circumstances taken together, it is probable, that the Merino race 

 of sheep was not introduced into Spain from Barbary, as asserted by the French 

 Encyclopedists. 



I have adverted above to the attention which the Romans paid to their sheep. 

 These appear to have been chiefly of two kinds.* One, which had comparatively 

 coarse and long wool,t was, on those accounts, called " hirtum," or " hirsutum," 

 rough, hairy, or shaggy; and from its hardiness and ruder treatment, " colonicum," 

 or rustic. The other breed, which, from producing the fine short wool,;J; was much 

 valued, and the object of peculiar care, was called by various names ; " molle," ^ 

 tender; from its delicacy of constitution, or treatment; or perhaps soft, from the 

 quality of its fltece ; " generosum," or noble, from its excellence; " pellitum," {[ 

 from its being generally clothed with skins, in order to preserve its wool; " tec- 

 " turn," for the same reason, or, perhaps, from its being usually housed; 

 " Apulum," " Calabrum," " Tarentinum," " Atticum," and " Graecum," H 

 from the neighbourhood or district in which it chiefly lived; the two last names 

 having reference to a considerable portion of that part of Italy, which was then 



• Ergo duo genera sunt ovilli pecoris, molle et hirsutum. ColumdI.-e lib. vii. cap. 2. Ovium 

 sunima genera duo, tectum et colohicuin. Pliii. Hist. Nat. lib. viii. § 72. 



f Est et hirtx pile crasso in tapttii antiquissima gratia. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. viii. § 73. 



t Apulx breves villo. I'lin. Hist. Nat. viii. /j. 



§ Ex omnibus Tarentinum est mollitsimum. Columel. vii. 4. 



jl In ovibus pellitis, qus propter lans boiiitar-m, iit sunt Tarentinx et Attica:, pellibus intc- 

 guntur, ne Una inquinetur. Varron. lib. ii. tap. 2. 



<] Gixcum pec us, quod plerique Tarentinum vocant, Columel. vii. 4. 



