98 THE PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS, 



sheep, which were very active and robust, would roam 

 abroad, and without much difficulty jump over these 

 fences into other people's farms. As a matter of 

 course, this exuberant activity on the part of the 

 sheep constantly gave rise, to all sorts of quarrels, 

 bickerings, and contentions among the farmers 

 of the neighbourhood ; so it occurred to Seth 

 Wright, who was, like his successors, more or less 

 'cute, that if he could get a stock of sheep like 

 those with the bandy legs, they would not be able to 

 jump over the fences so readily; and he acted upon 

 that idea. He killed his old ram, and as soon 

 as the young one arrived at maturity, he bred 

 altogether from it. The result was even more 

 striking than in the human experiment which I 

 mentioned just now. Colonel Humphreys testifies 

 that it always happened that the offspring were 

 either pure Ancons or pure ordinary sheep ; that in 

 no case was there any mixing of the Ancons with the 

 others. In consequence of this, in the course of a very 

 few years, the farmer was able to get a very considerable 

 flock of this variety, and a large number of them were 

 spread throughout Massachusetts. Most unfortunately, 

 however — I suppose it was because they were so com- 

 mon — nobody took enough notice of them to preserve 

 their skeletons ; and although Colonel Humphreys 

 states that he sent a skeleton to the president of the 

 Royal Society at the same time that he forwarded his 

 paper, and I am afraid that the variety has entirely 

 disappeared; for a short time after these sheep had 

 become prevalent in that district, the Merino sheep 



