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It indicates nothing but that nature requires colouring on the 

 face and legs of an animal which is to live upon the hills che- 

 quered with dark-hued heather. And we may safely confide that 

 a flock, with half its numbers dun-faced and dun-legged, or a 

 little freckled in face and legs, will be hardier in all seasons 

 than one comprising none but white and pale-faced sheep. The 

 dun-faced will assuredly take more freely to the heather, not 

 letting it run to waste as it now so largely does. 



Instead of uniformity of hue in a mountain flock, which must 

 feed and live on great variety of ground, let us do as our fore- 

 fathers did — preserve and admire a good sheep all the more for 

 a robust and tawny tint or freckling on its face. If we prefer 

 only white rams to breed from, let us be the more careful to 

 preserve all good dun-faced ewes. But the man who first re- 

 stores the best robust dun-faced Cheviot rams will be a benefac- 

 tor on the Border moorlands. He will himself possess a hardier 

 and a more numerous flock than he ever did before, because he 

 will utilize his heather and his benty pasturage more effectually. 

 There is no need to introduce strange blood to obtain a little 

 colour into the existing flocks. It is ever ready to come, if we 

 only abstain from weeding it out when it appears. Nature in 

 her wrath and revulsion tries to contend with the violation of 

 her laws by producing an opposite extreme, namely, a greater 

 sprinkling of absolutely black lambs than would be yeaned from 

 dun-faced mothers, for such nigels are rare both amongst horned 

 heather-sheep and southdowns. The mouflon and other species, 

 or geographical races, of wild sheep, approximate in colour more 

 to our southdown, and other dusky varieties with light coloured 

 fleeces, than either to white sheep or to black. 



A curious circumstance occurred of an exceptional production 

 of young white pigeons in our dovecot at Hedgeley during several 

 successive years, though the parent birds were the ordinary blue 

 semi-feral farmyard doves, with a few among them possessing 

 perfect blue-rock plumage. 



On investigation I found that unwelcome increase of white 

 birds in the flock (unwelcome because always tender) arose from 

 my gardener (who was in charge of the dovecot) killing for the 



