MARCO POLO'S SHEEP. 



association with their other good qualities, has caused them to extend to nearly every county. In 

 parts of Hampshire, Shropshire, and Dorsetshire there are local breeds of Short-woolled Sheep 

 which replace the Southdowns. 



The Cheviot and the Black-faced, or Heath breed of our northern counties are mountain Sheep, 

 of small size and hardy constitution, the former horned, the latter hornless and with a white face. 



Welsh mutton is obtained from the small, soft-woolled Sheep with a white nose and face. The 

 ratns alone have horns, wherein the breed differs from that of the higher mountains, in which the 

 ewes also are horned, at the same time that a ridge of hair is present along the top of the neck. 



As wool forms so important an element of the mercantile transactions of Great Britain, and as 

 Sheep-farming has so rapidly increased in Australia and New Zealand, a few words with reference 

 to the statistics of the subject will not be out of place. 



In 1788, when Governor Phillip landed at Port Jackson, there was not a Sheep in all Australia, 

 and it was not until 1793 that about thirty of the Indian breed reached Sydney, their number being 

 shortly augmented by the importation of breeding-stock from England and the Cape of Good Hope, 

 principally Merinos. The progeny soon spread towards the interior, where the growing of wool 

 became a lucrative pursuit. Sheep were first imported into New Zealand in 1840. It is estimated 

 there are now one hundred million sheep in Australia, and nearly thirty million in New Zealand. 



The following table of the number of bales of wool imported into Great Britain at twenty-year 

 intervals, that is, in 1836, 1856, and 1876, gives a better idea than can be otherwise obtained as to 

 the changes in the sources of wool as well as to the richness of each colonial district : 



LUPOHTATION OP COLONIAL AND FOREIGN WOOL INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM (IN BALES). 



1836. 



1856. 



1876. 



New South Wales and Queensland 



Victoria 



Tasmania . 



South Australia 



West Australia 



New Zealand 



Total Austrnlii\iin 

 Cape of Good Hope 



Total Colonial 



German .... 

 Spanish and Portuguese 

 East Indian and Persian . 

 Russian .... 

 Itiver Plate 

 Peru, Lima, and Chili 

 Alpaca .... 

 Mediterranean and Africa 

 Mohair . 

 Sundry . 



Total Foreign 



TOTAL IMPORTATION 



So much for the domestic Sheep ; of other species of the genus Ovis we have Marco Polo's Sheep.* 

 This splendid Sheep, one of the finest species of the genus, has horns, describing a spiral of about 

 a circle and a quarter when viewed from the side, pointing directly outwards, and sometimes measuring 

 as many as sixty- three inches from base to tip along their curve, and as much as four and a half 

 feet from tip to tip. At the shoulder the animal measures just under four feet. It inhabits the high 

 lands in the neighbourhood of the lofty Thian Shan mountains, north of Kashgar and Yarkand, not 

 descending below an elevation of 9,000 feet above the sea level, often ascending much higher. It is 



* OvisPuIi. 



