On Tunis Sheep. 225 



a most valuable item to the catalogue of domestic ani- 

 mals. 1 claim the exclusion of the Tunis sheep from 

 his zoography. 



1. Because in Mr. Livingston's Lusus JVatunv, all 

 the fat of the hinder parts is in the tail. — In the Tunis 

 sheep, it is well, and generally, distributed through the 

 whole carcase. 



2. In his Hybrids^ the caudical fat (for in my recol- 

 lection he mentions no other, in any quantity) is, in 

 warm climates, oily and soft, and, when melted, will 

 not again indurate. In the natural Tunis sheep, all the 

 fat is capable of resuming its hardness after melting. I 

 have never seen more solid, whiter, or finer mutton 

 tallow, in all states of atmospheric temperature, than 

 the fat of this sheep affords. 



The speculations of a mind so ingenious and instruc- 

 tive, excited by a laudable desire to inform (though 

 there may be some fanciful flights) I leave on their 

 own merits. I believe professed naturalists know little 

 more than I do, of these, or other secrets of nature. 

 The celebrated Buffon is not without a quantum sufficit^ 

 of what the French call *' les Egarements de I' Esprit,'''^ — 

 visionary wanderings. 



The protuberated tail of the Tunis sheep, composed 

 of " delicate esculent," and not of soft fat, as a mere 

 *' repository," and which Mr. Livingston calls *' an 

 excressence and deformity," was, no doubt, bestowed 

 for wise purposes. By what I have mentioned of the 

 difficulty attending the coupling of a common tup with 

 a Tunis ewe, it would seern^ that this guard was given 

 to her, and other broad tailed sheep, to prevent mixture 

 with a different species of animal j which the author of 



VOL. II, F f 



