512 



THE WALLACHIAN SHEEP. 



the snow, without losing their condition by it, as the season is 

 short and the snow passes away more rapidly on the salt parts 

 of the steppes ; and all animals fatten by feeding on the herbage 

 of a saline soil."* The fat-rumped sheep, entirely confined to 

 Asia, must not be confounded with the fat-tailed sheep, which 

 inhabits Syria, Arabia, Egypt, ^Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and many parts of the interior of Africa. 



THE WALLACHIAN, OR SPIRAL-HORNED SHEEP. 

 (Ovis Aries, var. strepsiceros, Linn.) 



This, which is one of the most remarkable of the European 

 breeds of sheep, is said to be common in Wallachia, Hungary, 

 and the western parts of Asia. According to Belon, who wrote 

 on natural history in the middle of the sixteenth century, this 

 variety of the sheep occurs in Crete. A few years since, a 

 splendid ram of this kind, which came from Mount Parnassus, 

 was placed in the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens. " Its 

 temper was unruly, and its strength and viciousness rendered 

 it somewhat unsafe to approach it. Its horns were very large 

 and spirally contorted, adding greatly to its strikingly pic- 

 turesque appearance. Its fleece was white, and consisted of 

 * Agricultural Magazine (1804), p. 39. 



