OVIS ARIES. 



preserve it from the action of the air, it is generally run into 

 bladders while in the liquid state. 



Mutton is less dense than beef, very digestible and whole- 

 some, and is at its greatest perfection when about five years 

 old. It is very much improved by the castration of the ani- 

 mal, and is then called wether -mutton. The broth made of it 

 does not agree so well as light beef-tea or veal-tea with deli- 

 cate and weakened stomachs, but it forms an excellent emol- 

 lient enema, in cases of ulceration or abrasion of the rectum, 

 and that state of the bowels of infants which occasions green 

 stools and aphthae. 



The milk of the ewe is seldom used either as aliment or 

 medicine. It contains more cream and less whey than cow's 

 milk, but the butter yielded by it never acquires a proper con- 

 sistence. It is made into cheese in some parts of Scotland, 

 which is bitterish, and when old, warm, biting, and resem- 

 bling Parmesan cheese in flavor* 



The peculiar characteristics of wool, and those on which 

 its valuable qualities chiefly depend, are the serrated charac- 

 ters of its surface, arising from its structure, which consists 

 of a series or succession of inverted cones, the base of each 

 being directed from the root of the woolly fibre and receiving 

 the apex of the succeeding cone. It results from this struc- 

 ture, that the pressure to which the workman subjects the 

 wool in moving it backwards and forwards brings the fibres 

 together and multiplies their points of contact The agita- 

 tion gives to each hair a progressive motion towards the root, 

 and the serrations of one hair fix themselves on those of an- 

 other hair which happens to have its root turned in the oppo- 

 site direction, and the mass at length assumes the compact 

 form which is termed "felted" wool. 



The wool of the sheep, from the remotest period of history, 

 has been of primary importance to mankind, and it has been 

 surprisingly improved by its domestic culture. The Mou- 

 FLON, Ouis aries, the parent stock from which our sheep is 

 undoubtedly derived, and which is still found in a wild state 

 upon the mountains of Sardinia, Corsica, Barbary, Greece, 

 and Asia Minor, has a very short and coarse fleece, more like 

 hair than wool. When this animal is brought under the fos- 

 tering care of man, the rank fibres gradually disappear, while 

 the soft wool round their roots, little conspicuous in the wild 

 animal, becomes singularly developed. The male most speed- 



10 



