248 



THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



to some extent, but mostly to the most skillful selection 

 by the old breeders, who built up our finest races of cattle 

 as well as these sheep. And the prepotency of these original 

 breeds is shown by the comparison of the wool, and by trac- 

 ing how the peculiar character of the fleeces has survived 

 in the improved races. This evidence will show how it is by 

 the fleece that may be traced the lineage of the newer 

 breeds, and also give reason to believe that quite as great 

 victories in this pursuit may yet remain to be achieved. 



Attention is directed to the drawings of the wools named. 

 The fibers have been magnified 310 diameters. The size of 

 each is the average some fibers may vary as much as 25 

 per cent either way. They may thus average about l-650th 

 to l-800th of an inch in diameter. They come under the 

 category of coarse wools. We may trace in these first the 

 effect of the Southdown upon the old Hampshire, and per- 

 ceive distinctly how the smoothness of the scales has modi- 



FIG. 14. 

 Old Hampshire. 



FIG. 20. 



Southdown. 



FIG. 21. FIG. 15. New FIG. 16. 

 Cotswold. Hampshire. Oxford. 



fied the uneven and ill-formed epithelium of the old Hamp- 

 shire, which we know was a large, bony, big-headed, coarse- 

 wooled sheep that was fed by the Romans in Britain twenty 

 centuries ago, and whose wool supplied the first factory 

 erected by them, and worked on English soil. Looking at 

 the fiber we can easily imagine what kind of a sheep this 

 was; that it was not fed as well as the modern sheep, and 

 thus the fiber was uneven in diameter, and rough and harsh 

 and crowded in length. 



In the study of the effects of crossing sheep for variety 

 of wool we may take as the most prominent examples these 

 two modem breeds, the Hampshire and the Oxford, two 

 kinds of sheep classed among the so-called Down breeds. 

 The former originated in a cross of a native white-faced, 

 horned sheep kept in the district around the county of Hamp- 

 shire in the south of England by a pure Southdown. This 



