FRENCH BREEDS. 51 



of making an excellent mutton sheep, which was received 

 with much favor as something new to the French people. 

 This cross, however, for want of sustaining by new blood 

 has retrograded and fallen into some disrepute, not the fault 

 of the sheep at all, but for the reason that the French breed- 

 ers do not possess the art and skill of those of England. It 

 should be said, however, that as regards the Merino, especi- 

 ally under the care of the manager of the Rambouillet farm, 

 this want of skill finds a noted exception. 



The French possess some native long-wooled sheep, the 

 best of which are to be found in the localities of Normandy, 

 Picardy and the Vendeean. These sheep, however, are 

 worthless as compared with the English breeds, as they still 

 retain all the ungaiuliness and ill form of the old races be- 

 fore any skilled attempt was made for their improvement. 

 These breeds are noted for their long legs and thin thighs- 

 all bare of wool, long drooping ears, and coarse thin wool on 

 their sides. But they have the advantage of easy fattening 

 when fed for mutton. The American traveler who is en- 

 tertained with the gigot, as the leg is called, of the native 

 flocks is ill satisfied with the dry and coarse meat, especially 

 after having been used to the English Southdown or Lei- 

 cester leg. One of the picturesque sights on the French 

 pastures, on the western coast districts, is the shepherds 

 mounted on high stilts guarding their flocks apt to get out 

 of their sight behind the low hummocks or in the frequent 

 hollows of the broad almost uninhabited Llandes, lying be- 

 tween the considerable cities of Bordeaux and Bayonne. This 

 almost barren region, a waste of sandy land overgrown by 

 low bushes and coarse herbage, among which the lean, ill- 

 conditioned flocks of scraggy-wooled sheep range and feed, 

 is the locality of wretched hovels inhabited by a stunted race 

 of shepherds who clothe themselves in the skins of their 

 sheep, the legs of which furnish coverings for the limbs of 

 the people, being drawn on when soft and pliable and 

 yet warm from the stunted sheep, and stay on until they are 

 worn off, when they are renewed. The skins also furnish 

 jackets for these picturesque shepherds, possibly such as 

 kept the flocks of the patriarchs in the old days of Jacob, 

 who tended doubtless in some such manner the flocks of his 

 father-in-law, and paid for his wives in the staple currency 



