SHEEP IN SCOTLAND 37 



colouring of the Mouflon is foxey-red and that of the Urial 

 reddish-grey or fawn in summer, and in winter greyish-brown. 

 In both, the under parts of the body, the sides of the short 

 tail, the rump and the lower parts of the legs are white. In 

 both species also, the rams bear a short mane on the neck 

 and a goat-like beard, but the beard of the Mouflon is con- 

 fined to the lower part of the throat and chest, while that 

 of the Urial extends from the chin to the chest and in old 

 rams is white in front and black behind. 



In what respects has man influenced these creatures of 

 nature in adapting them for his own use? 



THE SHEEP OF SOAY 



The sheep of Soay (Fig. 6, p. 38) may be regarded as an 

 early stage in the domestication of the Mouflon, though in 

 the characters of some of the ewes and in the offspring which 

 he has raised by cross-breeding, Professor J. Cossar Ewart 

 detects an admixture of Urial blood. Indeed the sheep of 

 Soay may be taken as an illustration of how little the habits 

 and characteristics of domesticated animals alter from the 

 wild state, where they are freed from close association with 

 man, and are not subject to his constant interference. In the 

 uninhabited isle of Soay, one of that group of rocky islands 

 which lies out in the Atlantic 40 miles west of the Outer 

 Hebrides, and of which St Kilda is the greatest, the remnant 

 of a once widely distributed race of sheep finds a congenial 

 home. There they live a wild life, seeing man once or twice 

 a year at most, when some of the St Kildans endeavour to 

 gather their sparse crop of wool by hunting them down with 

 dogs. When they were established on this island no man 

 knows, but they belong to a large-horned race which was 

 widely spread in Europe in the Bronze Age, was represented 

 in the Swiss lake-dwellings, in the settlements of the Romans 

 in Britain, and was identified by Professor Ewart from the 

 Roman Camp at Newstead near Melrose. To their inac- 

 cessible habitation we owe the survival of these last repre- 

 sentatives of a great race. 



The name "Soay" itself is said to be a Norse word 

 signifying " Sheep Island," and for many centuries the 

 peculiarities of the Soay sheep, as compared with the more 



