AMERICAN INSTITUTE. • 203 



By H. Meigs. — Bulletin Mensxuil De La Societe Imperiale, Zoologique 

 D'Acclimatation. Paris, May, 1859. 



Mons. Pepin distributed seeds of the False Varnish tree of Japan, the 

 {Ailanihjis glandulosa) to be used for sillj worms as they thrive on its 

 leaves. 



Mons. Bourgois called attention to Broom Corn as a forage plant, and 

 the seeds also, the Holcus sorghum vel. Sorgu?n vulgare. 



Mons. Ravel proposes to try his mode of raising truffles in the Bois de 

 Boulonge. 



Prof E. Cornalia, of Milan, (one of our members) addressed a note to 

 the Society relative to the disease of silk worms, with the experience of 

 Mons. Vittadini on the subject, showing the existence of corpuscles of 

 uniform size in the tissues and liquids of the diseased worm, and Mons. 

 Lebert's discovery of these corpuscles in the vitellus (the yolk) of its 



egg. 



We have a bird from Paraguay whose flesh is like that of the turkey, 

 and nearly as large. It is there called the Mitu. (It is a Hocco.) 



THE SHEEP OF SPAIN. 



By President Renwick : 



The idea that the race of fine wooled sheep of Spain had been derived 

 from England, is not new. It is nearly half a century since I first heard 

 it, and it was supported by the quotation of the license granted by 

 Edward IV. in 1465, as cited by Sir J. Boileau. The variety said to 

 have been exported under the license was that of Cotswold. That such a 

 claim should have been made when the merino sheep was hardly known in 

 England is not extraordinary, but that it should have been after the pecu- 

 liar characteristics of that race had become well known, is astonishing. 

 The mere external characters of the merino differ so much from those of 

 any one and from those of all the British ewes, that the most inexperi- 

 enced parties could hardly fail to select the merino from any flock with 

 which it might have been mingled. There is among these characters one 

 which seems decisive against the British origin of the merino sheep, as 

 well as against its being derived from any of the extra-tropical climates to 

 which the epithet of temperate is applied. Such climates are marked by 

 great extremes of temperature, and the animals anlunotized in them are 

 provided with a covering which thickens at the approach of winter, and 

 falls off" in summer. This covering in the case of the sheep of the British 

 isles is the wool, which is shorn when at its highest perfection. ]>ut. if 

 the shearing be neglected the wool loses its oilality and drops ofl", although 

 probably at a later period of the summer than it would have done, had 

 not the race been subjected for the ages to the shears. 



This is not the case with the merino, as I learnt by accident. On a 

 visit about the year 1812 to Vermont, I was shown, by Charles Storer 

 Esq., over his beautiful fervie ornee at Bellows Falls. It was the month 

 of September, and I there saw a fine merino sheep covered with a long 



