The Lonks. 



■5* 



are waiting for the train at Clitheroe, and yearn to 

 know what a young " cock salmon" looks like when 

 it emerges from the egg, and is magnified 64 dia- 

 meters, had better stroll up street and look into 

 his shop window for some minutes as zealously as 

 we did. 



We were first at Knowlmere in the days of 

 " Mountain King," who was then in his heyday, and 

 had just won his thirteenth out of some forty first 

 prizes. He made quite a picture as he stood, held by 

 a rod through holes drilled in his horns, and with a 

 fleece of i61bs. on his back, of which fully iolbs. had 

 been made since the 6th of May. Through the heart 

 and in the breast he was all that could be wished, and 

 the family failing of the Lonks over the loin was very 

 small indeed. This was in '60, and he died on 

 November 12th, 1864. 



The " black mutton," as the Robin Hoods of the 

 district delicately termed it, has quite disappeared 

 from the Forest of Bowland since the fiat of dispark- 

 ing went forth. Those who just remember the 

 killing of the last buck have long since grown into 

 greybeards, and when antlers were extinct, the 

 curved horn of the Lonk King reigned paramount on 

 the fells. His prescriptive title among sheep may 

 be traced back for more than a century all round 

 the Keighley Moors, Pendle Hill, and along the 

 Forest of Bowland to Lancaster. Near Rochdale 

 the farmers are wont to cross with the Saddleworths 

 for the sake of greater size, and the blackfaced and 

 sometimes a Leicester cross comes in on the lower 

 lands near Lancaster ; but the Lonk never nicks well 

 with a Cheviot mate. Fastidious breeders consider 

 that there is a separate breed of Lonks on every 

 sheep-walk, and discern the difference not in the shape, 

 but in the lighter or darker mottle on the face and 

 legs. Quality of wool is a great Lonk attribute, and 

 hence Mr. Peel has never crossed his flock with the 



