160 THE SHEEP. 



forests and commons. The Chum Forest breed had wool 

 weighing from 2 Ib. to 3 Ib. the fleece ; and the Shawberry 

 breed, sometimes called the Tadpole, from its diminutive 

 size, had wool of extraordinary tenuity and softness. The 

 mere remnants of these and other varieties are now only to 

 be found ; the admixture of the races of the lower country, 

 or of the mountain breeds of Wales, having nearly obliterated 

 the former distinctions. 



Thus, the finest-woolled Sheep of the British Islands may 

 be said to be extinct as a breed. Their former value, arising 

 from the adaptation of their wool to the manufacture of 

 native cloth, has been lost. Commerce now supplies us with 

 wool more adapted to the purposes of the clothier ; and other 

 native races afford a material better suited, by the length 

 and strength of its filaments, to the class of manufactures in 

 which the combing wools are employed. These longer- 

 woolled Sheep are likewise fitted to yield a larger return to 

 the breeder who has artificial food at command ; and hence 

 the disappearance of the fine-woolled Sheep of the western 

 counties, is merely the result of the better cultivation of the 

 country, and of changes in the channels of commerce and 

 manufacturing industry. 



XVL THE SOUTH DOWN BREED. 



Of the breeds of Short-woolled Sheep which formerly in- 

 habited the mountains, downs, forests, and less fertile dis- 

 tricts of the country, some, it has been seen, were distin- 

 guished by being of small size, by being mostly destitute of 

 horns, and by having the legs and faces white ; and to this 

 class is to be referred the beautiful little breed of Hereford- 

 shire, and other districts west of the Severn, already men- 

 tioned. But another class of breeds, still more diffused, is 

 distinguished by the individuals having the legs and faces of 

 a dark colour, and, in most cases, by the presence of horns 



