DOMESTICATED MAMMALS AND THEIR USES 



227 



sheep, i.e. the Barbary Sheep (Ovis tragelaphus), is now peculiar 

 to North Africa, and another, the Mouflon or Musimon (O. 

 musimon, fig. 1163), is limited to Corsica and Sardinia, though 

 it probably once had a wider distribution. One or both these 

 species have possibly contributed a strain towards the formation 

 of our ordinary tame 

 varieties. 



As dwellers among 

 mountains and rocky 

 uplands, Sheep oc- 

 cupy a different place 

 in nature from Oxen, 

 and being close 

 browsers are able to 

 live comfortably on 

 herbage quite unsuit- 

 able for horned stock, 

 as may be seen in the 

 barren " sheep-walks" 

 of Central Wales. 

 The practical impor- 

 tance of this is suf- 

 ficiently obvious. In 

 assessing the value of 

 these animals from the 

 economic stand-point, 

 we have to reckon 

 not only with meat 

 and, to a less extent, 

 milk, but also with 

 wool, a material that 

 has played an important part in the history of textile industries. 

 In the colder parts of the globe clothing of some sort ranks as 

 a necessity, which the prehistoric hunter supplied by roughly 

 stitching together the skins of various animals, sinews being used 

 as thread. This kind of clothing is still in vogue among many 

 savage or half-civilized races. Lord Avebury thus speaks (in 

 Prehistoric Times] of the Esquimaux in this connection: " The 

 clothes of the Esquimaux are made from the skins of reindeer, 

 seals, and birds, sewn together with sinews. For needles they 



Fig. 1163. The Mouflon (Ovis tmisimon) 



