42 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



It shall be shown when we come to discuss the influence of 

 domestic stock on the wild fauna of Scotland that the in- 

 tensive cultivation of sheep which resulted in these enormous 

 flocks in Tweeddale and the neighbouring parts was one of 

 the chief factors in banishing Red Deer from the Lowland 

 hills. 



What were the characteristics of the ancient " Turbary " 

 race which for thousands of years, from Neolithic times to 

 the Middle Ages, formed the main part of the domestic sheep 

 of the Scottish peoples, and how had domestication and the 



Fig. 7 Turbary or Peat Sheep (ewe) a pr 

 only in Scotland. 



tive domesticated race preserved 

 nat. size. 



rude selective breeding of the older periods affected the 

 characters of the wild Urial whence they seem to have 

 obtained the greater part of their inheritance? 



We can scarcely do better, in supplementing the charac- 

 ters derived from the skeletal remains of the Neolithic 

 kitchen-middens and of the later prehistoric and early his- 

 toric deposits, than make appeal to the last representatives 

 of the Turbary race which till recently lingered in the isolated 

 islands of Shetland. 



The chief difference in general appearance was one of 

 size, for while the domestic Turbaries still retained the slender 

 limbs and light agile build of the Urial, they stood only 



