.Jamiaiv, 1!I21. 



S (• I E X T 1 !•' J (J A U K 1 C IJ J^ T U U Ji. 



35 



Of the rairicls the cliicf rcprpseiitativc is tjie tnic 

 Camel, from vvhicli lar^re (|uaiitities of hair — usually 

 exported from Russia or China — find tlieir way into 

 the textile manufacturiiifr centres of the world. An 

 almost equally important^ firoup is tlie Soutli Ameri- 

 ean representative of the Camel tribe known as t!he 

 Llama. Tjie followinfr pi'aph gives tiie i-elationship 

 of the pn'sent-day i-cprescntalives of this frroup aloni; 

 with the crosses. 



GRAPH if. 

 Huanaco. 



Vicuna. 



Alpaca. 



Llama. 



Special Special 



Cross ( 'ross 



At present ail tihese animals are limited in range 

 to the Andes and altitude seems to have jilayed a 

 g-reat part in their development. Thus, tjie Llama 

 (Fig. ]) is found at the lower allitnde; the Alpaca 

 (Fig. 2) will not thrive below 12,000 feet and the 

 Vicuna (Fig. 3) appears to be a small wild variety. 



the domestication of which is just being attempted. 



« « ' • ' m 



Of the sheep of the world, \(ihinies could be 

 written but it is only desirable to here give those 

 examples and ]iar1iculai-s w^iich will enable the stu- 

 dent of the Wool Industries to intelligently survey 

 the sources of supply of raw materials and perhaps 

 to speculate upon passible improvements in the quali 

 ties and quantities ]U'oduced. 



Until the recent investigations of Profe.ssor •!. 

 Coesar Ewart, of the University of Edinburgh, no 

 satisfying explanation of tihe evolution of the domes- 

 ticated sheep was forthcoming. Even now the pic- 

 ture is by no means completed. After many journey- 

 ings through t^ie world, and special visits to sheep 

 rearing countries and tiic study of many types of 

 sheep and allied aninuds, Pi-ofessor Ewart discov- 

 ered the key to the position in the little island of 

 Soay off the coast of St. Kiida, Scotland. Here he 

 found living in nncontaminatcd seclusion a sihort- 

 tailed sheeji whicli lie eventually recognized a.s t,he 



Figure 2. 

 Young Alpaca.s, approximately 3 months .old. 



slieep which was spread over Europe in the Stone 

 Age, the relics of which were continually being found 

 in lake villages and cave dwellings. The island 

 of Soay (Sheep Island) would be tihe extreme nort.ti- 

 we-stern point of the continent of Europe before the 

 British Isles became separated from the continent by 

 the North Sea, but the ancient breed of sheep would 

 not have been found there in their pure unadulter- 

 ated form but for the fact tjiat it is extremely diffi- 

 cult to land on this particular island and that conse- 

 quently from year to year little disturbance of the 

 flocks of sheep living there has occurred. 



Here, then, was the key, but how was it to be 

 employed to reveal what had jiiappened? The story 

 is too long to be followed out fully here but it in- 

 cludes investigation of the Urial sheep of Central 

 Asia, the Moufflon of Sardinia, and the fat-nimped 

 sheep and the fat-tailed sheep hailing from Central 

 Asia. The absence of the long tail in the Soay sheep 

 (Fig. 4) and the very mych-in-evidenee tail of the 

 fat-tailed sheep (Fig. .5) of course formed one line 

 of researcih. The migrations of the Nordic, the Al- 

 pine and the Mediterranean races formed another 

 line of research. And so altiiough the story is not 



Figure 1. 

 Llamas. 



Figure .". 

 Male and Female A'^icunas. 



