25S Extract from Mr. Livi?igston's Essay on Sheep. 



fifty pounds. Another species have the tail broad and flat, 

 but not very long, covered with wool above, but smooth 

 below, and divided by a furrow into two lobes of flesh j these 

 are also said to weigh above thirty pounds : I should not 

 however estimate the weight of those which I saw in the 

 Menagerie at Paris, at more than ten or twelve pounds. In^ 

 some species a small thin tail projects from the center of this 

 fieshy excrescence. The composition of this excrescence is 

 said to be a mixture of flesh with a great proportion oi fat, 

 and to be a very delicate food ; hut the animal has little 

 other fat^ the tail being in him the repository of that fat 

 -which lays about the loins of other sheep. In cold climates 

 the fat of the tail resonbles suet ; but in warm ones, as at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar &c. it is so soft that when 

 melted it will not harden again. The inhabitants mix it with 

 tallow in certain proportions, when it assumes the consistency 

 of hogs lard^ and is then eaten like butter, or used for culinary 

 purposes. Naturalists imagine that this excrescence is owing to 

 some circumstances in the food of the sheep, which makes the 

 fat fall dozunfrom the loin into the taily and thus occasions this 

 monstrosity. I do not, however, think this probable, since the 

 prodigious extent of country through which this race is pro^ 

 pagatedy must render the food as various as the climates in 

 which they are bred. I rather think that it owes its origin to 

 the art of man^ grounded on some of those sports of nature^ 

 which in all domestic animals, afford a basis whereon to en- 

 graft his xvhimsP 



28. 29. " It may be asked to what end would man culti- 

 vate this deformity^ and that too through so extensive a re- 

 gion as to forbid our attributing it to whim or fashion ? may 

 nol the shepherd who first observed this Liisus Naturae in his 

 flock have concluded, that he had made a veiy valuable ac- 

 quisition, since he jiot only had a sheep that gave him as 

 much wooly milk or fesh as the rest of his flock, but a taily 

 which, in addition^ gave him a comfortable meal, or what is 



