ORDER RUMINANTIA. 313 



Although the generic characters are so little remote 

 from Capra, that there is less difference between them than 

 between the sub-genera of Antilope, still certain physio- 

 gnomical traits are always obvious, and lead to other indi- 

 cations of more importance. Among these, the horns are 

 very voluminous, more or less angular, transversely wrin- 

 kled, pale, or whitish, turned laterally in spiral directions, 

 and growing upon a porous bony axis ; the forehead with 

 its chaffron is almost constantly arched, and protruded 

 before the base of the horns, but there are no lachrymary 

 openings, and the nostrils are lengthened, oblique, and 

 terminated without a muzzle ; the incisors, the middlemost 

 of which is the largest, form a regular curve, touching at 

 their sides. Sheep have no beard, properly so called; the 

 ears are middle-sized, and pointed; the body is round, 

 covered with short close hair, with a short downy wool 

 beneath, and the legs are slender and firm, without brushes 

 or callosities. Their stature is rather larger than that of 

 the Ibex, but that of the female does not exceed that of the 

 Goat ; her horns are small, pointed, almost vertical, and di- 

 vergent, sometimes wanting, and there are two mammae. 

 A rufous-dun, passing into a chocolate-gray, appears to be 

 the wild primitive colour of the genus, in which particular 

 all the species have so close a resemblance, that they may 

 be considered as forming only one, slightly diversified by the 

 accidents of climate and food ; but with regard to the do- 

 mestic races, it is varied to excess by all the circumstances 

 which the influence of man can produce. 



Sheep live in families or flocks, more or less numerous, 

 upon the most inaccessible mountains of Asia, Africa, Eu- 

 rope, and America ; a circumstance sufficient to prove, that 

 in strength, hardihood, and enterprise, they are in nowise 

 inferior to goats. They are found on the Islands in the Me- 

 diterranean, and even upon the Kuriles in the Northern 

 Pacific, where it would seem that the ice only could have 



Vol. IV. V 



