UBir. 317 



CHAPTER XVlf. 



SHEEP. 



With the exception of the dog, there is no one of the brute 

 tion which r\hilits tin* diversity of size, color, form, 

 <.\ t i ii!<: and general appearance which characterises the 

 -her|>, and none which occupies a wider range of climate, or 

 Mihsi>is on a greater variety of food. In every latitude be- 

 tween the equator and the arctic, he ranges over sterile 

 mountains, and through the fertile vallies. He feeds on 

 almost every species of edible forage, the cultivated grasses, 

 clovers, cereals and roots ; he browses on aromatic and bitter 

 herbs ; lie crops the leaves and bark from the stunted forest 

 shrubs, and the pungent, resinous evergreens. In some parts 

 o!' Xorway and Sweden, when other resources fail, he sub- 

 sists on lish or flesh during their long and rigorous winters, 

 and if reduced to necessity, he eats his own wool. He is 

 diminutive like the Orkney, or massive like the Teeswaler. 

 Me is policerate or many horned ; he has two large or small 

 spiral horns like the Merino, or is polled or hornless like 

 the mutton sheep. He has a long tail like our own breeds; 

 a broad tail, like many of the eastern, or a mere button of a 

 tail, like the fat-rumps, discernible only by the touch. His 

 eoat is sometimes long and coarse, like the Lincolnshire ; 

 -liort and hairy, like those of Madagascar; soft and lurry, 

 like the Angola, or fine and spiral, like the silken Saxon. 

 Their color, either pure or fancifully mixed, varies from the 

 while or black of our own country, to every shade nf brown, 

 diinn, bull; blue, and I grey, like the spotted flocks of the 

 ('ape of (iood Hope and other parts of Africa and Asia. 

 This wide diversitv is the result of long domestication, under 

 almost evrry nmrrivahlc variety of condition. 



I BBS. Among the antediluvians, sheep were immolated 

 for sacrificial nflrrings, and their fleeces probably furnished 

 them with clothing. Since the deluge, their flesh has with 

 all nations, been used as a favorite food for man ; and by the 



